Friday, May 19, 2023

Southwest Florida Environmental PSA Videos

Although I'm a marine biologist whose primary research interest is the saltwater environment, I'm a big fan of nature in general, and that includes freshwater and terrestrial ecosystems. One of the reasons I care about these land and freshwater environments is because they are incredibly important in the processing of water flow and pollution as it makes its way from the land into the ocean. If the terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems get messed up, the ocean gets messed up, too. That means murky water, algal blooms, and death for all the seagrasses, corals, manatees, sharks etc. that I love, not to mention despoiling of the waters I like to windsurf and paddle on. So I take it very personally when I see dumb things being done on land that I know are going to harm the ocean. A new thing I am trying this summer to help save the environment is filming short public service announcement videos about various Southwest Florida environmental things. I hope they can help increase folks' knowledge and appreciation of our local environment and get them to start doing things differently in ways that will benefit the environment and themselves. I'm posting my first batch of videos here.

Some of the PSAs are simple profiles of particular species of interest:


Others address ecological concepts and managment ideas:


Some are linked to the hot issue of herbicide spraying around lakes and ponds; something I can't stand: