Like to bike? Come out to Bird Rookery Swamp on February 27th, 2015 from 9 am- 1pm and join CREW Trust volunteers Peter Tomlinson and Jan Watson for a guided tour of the picturesque 12-mile loop.
View beautiful scenery, great wildlife, and enjoy the company of like-minded souls.
Activity Level: Strenuous-This is a trail ride on uneven, soft, grassy/sandy trails. Ground level with swamp on both sides of the trail.
BRING YOUR OWN BICYCLE: Mountain, hybrid or fat tire bikes are recommended. Not appropriate for road bicycles. CREW does NOT provide bikes for this tour.
Space is limited to first 20 riders that register, so use the link below and sign up fast:
Q: Why do turtles spread their legs and feet out when they rest on logs?
A Red-bellied Turtle basks in Bird Rookery Swamp.
A: Turtles are cold-blooded animals, so they cannot control their body temperature internally. The only way they have to raise their body temperature is to bask to absorb warmth and vital UV rays. While heat is radiated to their bodies from their shells, they often stretch out their legs to collect additional heat.
Usually, their feet completely widen out at the same time to increase the surface area even more. They are able to engage in thermoregulation and their metabolism functions become elevated. As a result, the efficiency of their immune and digestive systems increases. Another benefit is that they absorb important UVB rays in sunlight. UVB rays become metabolized into vitamin D3 which is necessary to process calcium.
Winter is one of our busiest seasons for environmental education programs out on the CREW Marsh Trails. So, don’t be alarmed if you find yourself on the trails along with 120 kids.
Calusa Park students learn about CREW
The CREW Marsh Trail is an exciting outdoor classroom for kids from both Lee and Collier Counties. Jessi Drummond, our Environmental Education Specialist, takes 3rd graders out on a “Walk through the Watershed” where they spend time dip-netting, getting to know where their water comes from, and the importance of protecting the Corkscrew Regional Ecosystem Watershed.
Ricky Pires, from FGCU’s Wing of Hope Panther Posse Program, brings 4th and 5th grade students to the CREW Marsh Trails to teach them about the Florida panther, its habitat and research. FGCU college students help to lead the Wings of Hope field trips, giving them valuable service-learning experience.
Ricky Pires with Panther Posse students
Both of these programs, plus a variety of private and home school groups use the CREW trails to help educate the kids of all ages about CREW. As part of our mission to protect the Corkscrew Regional Ecosystem Watershed, these educational programs are important to developing support for the watershed and engaging people in its protection.
So, remember, the next time you go out to the CREW Marsh trails on a weekday from 10 AM to 1 PM, you may find kids exploring nature. Be glad they are there.
Anyone is welcome to come see the magic in action and experience the joy of children outdoors. For more information on CREW’s Environmental Education programs, click here.
Get ready to meet one of Florida’s most important keystone species – the Gopher Tortoise – at CREW’s Strolling Science Seminar (SSS) on Saturday, February 7th at the CREW Cypress Dome Trails . This exciting strolling seminar – The Gopher Tortoise: How protecting one species actually protects hundreds – will be led by FGCU biology instructor, Dr. John Herman. Registration is required, sign up here.
Dr. John Herman works with gopher tortoises
Dr. John Herman’s enthusiasm for reptiles is contagious and his first-hand knowledge is vast. Don’t miss this chance to learn science from one of the best.
Gopher Tortoises are called ecosystem engineers because they fundamentally change the environment where they live by digging burrows. Their burrows provide critical habitat for over 300 other species. We will investigate these burrows and get to know many of these co-inhabitants. Whether you love reptiles, amphibians, birds, mammals, insects, or plants; this seminar will have it all, thanks to the mighty Gopher Tortoise!
What to wear/bring: Wear comfortable outdoor walking clothes and closed-toed shoes. Please bring water to drink and to use to rinse hands. Also please avoid putting sunscreen, lotion, hand sanitizer, or any other chemical on the palms of your hands during this session.
Are there age limits for this event? Yes – this walking seminar is for adults, ages 18 and over.
Do I have to bring my printed ticket to the event? No. We like to conserve resources, so print tickets will not be issued. Just check in with the CREW staff when you arrive.
Q: What causes the small brown and yellow patches on healthy plant leaves?
An Alligator Flag leaf by the Bird Rookery Swamp boardwalk protects itself from further damage by isolating an invasive pathogen.
A:
It’s often apoptosis, a term that comes from plant kingdom where the Greek apoptosis originally meant the loss of petals of leaves. Now, it can refer to both the plant and animal kingdoms and is also called Programmed Cell Death (PCD).
Cells in plants and animals can self-destruct when they are no longer needed or if they are damaged. For plants, this achieves and maintains stability within the internal environment when it is dealing with external changes.
Natural PCD (not caused by external factors) includes the timely death of petals after fertilization and the senescence of leaves. Host-controlled PCD is also a means of resistance to pathogens. Cells challenged by pathogens initiate a hypersensitive response, which is a rapid PCD process that is activated in order to inhibit the spread of invading pathogen.
PCD in plants has a number of molecular similarities to animal apoptosis, but it also has differences. The most obvious is the lack of an immune system to remove the pieces of the dead cell.
Greatly simplified, instead of an immune response, an enzyme is activated that destroys the central vacuole (a bubble-like cavity) in the plant cell, which is followed by disintegration of the rest of the cell. This creates a protective, dead “envelope” around the pathogen to limit its spread. This is what may appear on some leaves as a yellow and brown blotch.
Some examples of apoptosis in the animal kingdom include the resorption of the tadpole tail at the time of its metamorphosis into a frog, the removal of tissue between fingers and toes of the fetus as it develops, the elimination of T cells that might otherwise mount an autoimmune attack on the body, and during the pupal stage of insects that undergo a complete metamorphosis, the death of most of the cells of the larva which provide nutrients for the development of the adult structures.
Like to bike? Well come out to Bird Rookery Swamp on January 9th, 2015 and join CREW Trust volunteers Peter Tomlinson and Jan Watson for a guided tour of the picturesque 12-mile loop.
View beautiful scenery, great wildlife, and enjoy the company of like-minded souls.
Activity Level: Strenuous-This is a trail ride on uneven, soft, grassy/sandy trails. Ground level with swamp on both sides of the trail.
BRING YOUR OWN BICYCLE: Mountain, hybrid or fat tire bikes are recommended. Not appropriate for road bicycles. CREW does NOT provide bikes for this tour.
Space is limited to first 20 riders that register, so use the link below and sign up fast:
* Over 38,000 visitors to CREW Trails
* Two amazing fundraisers brought in over $30,000
* CREW volunteers donated 3,906 hours
* 4,600 people participated in our environmental education programs
January 2014, the CREW Trust began its 25th anniversary, celebrating 25 years of land conservation and environmental education in southwest Florida. From the kick-off event in frigid cold weather last January to our final #GivingTuesday end-of-year fundraising campaign running through December 31st, this celebration has had something for everyone – a wine & cheese social and a BBQ for CREW members, trail events that included a variety of guided walks about everything from mushrooms to mammals, a geocaching day, a horseback ride through Flint Pen Strand, a guided bicycle ride at Bird Rookery Swamp, a Vitamin N Walk for families, a fabulous 25th anniversary concert featuring the Sarah Hadeka Band and Deb & the Dynamics, and our first #GivingTuesday fundraiser. Thank you to every one of you who volunteered, participated, sponsored, supported, and gave to CREW during 2014, making our 25th anniversary such a success! We look forward to the next 25 years…
This plant, with its feathery foliage and towering stature, grows alongside the trail out at the CREW Marsh Trails. The trails get a lot of visitors this time of year, especially 3rd graders from Collier County as part of their field trips to CREW. Schoolchildren visit CREW with their teachers and spend half of their morning on a nature hike, guided by our very own Jessi Drummond, who leads them through stops that feature explanations about prescribed burns, how to identify poison ivy and why it’s an important food source for deer, and even, if they are lucky, investigating scat (most often Bobcat scat). The other half of their field trip is spent dip netting and identifying the different living organisms in their water samples. The kids then have lunch, and leave- hopefully- with a pretty clear idea of why the watershed is important, with discussions that focus on habitat, the water cycle, and how the marshlands help clean our water.
This plant that is pictured above is one of our sensory teaching tools. Jessi stops with the students, takes off a few leaves, and passes them around to the students. “What do you smell?” she asks as little hands eagerly shoot up in the air. The students share that they smell everything from licorice to mint, and Jessi then lets them know that she smells pickles when she smells this plant which is Dog Fennel. Tying in their senses- hearing, touch, smell, sight- is an important part of the field trip for so many kids who just don’t spend enough time outside.
Education is a very important part of our mission at CREW, and this year, we’ve got a fundraising campaign for the month of December. Our goal is to raise $25,000, and an end-of-year gift from you, our supporters and members, can make that happen. It’s part of #GivingTuesday, an effort by many non-profits nationwide to remind everyone that after Black Friday and Cyper Monday, sometimes it’s nice to find a way to give back and pay it forward. Your donation will help further our education efforts at CREW and support all of our educational programs, including our field trips.
You can find out more about our #GivingTuesday campaign on our website (https://crewtrus.mystagingwebsite.com/2014/11/10/6996/). All donors receive a link to a special set of photographs of our CREW wildlife and donors at higher levels can receive special goodies, like tickets to our Concert and Silent Eco-Auction in March.
Next time you are out on the CREW Marsh Trails, watch out for the Dog Fennel, and take a moment to appreciate how this plant on the side of the trail has such a huge impact on 3rd graders in Collier County.
Q: Are African honey bees here? Are they dangerous?
A colony of African honey bees chose to settle on a high tree limb along the Marsh Trail, where they do not pose a threat.
A: According to Dr. Jamie Ellis, entomologist at the University of Florida, approximately eight out of ten wild honey bee colonies in Florida south of a line from Tampa to Daytona are the African honey bees, often referred to as the killer bees.
No honey bees are native to North or South America. European settlers brought a temperate European subspecies with them when they colonized the Western hemisphere, and that species is the common honey bee. The African honey bee was first imported to Brazil in the 1970s by a beekeeper hoping that using a tropical subspecies from Africa would provide more productive honey producers in tropical Brazil.
Escaped queens enabled the subspecies to spread across South America, Central America, and the southern and southwestern United States in just 30 years. It is the most biological successful invasive species.
There are no visual differences between the European and African honey bees. The African honey bee is slightly smaller and has slightly less venom, but the two are so close that the only way to distinguish them individually is to send a sample to the University of Florida’s
lab for dissection.
Both subspecies defend the territory around their colonies, which is the only time the bees will be aggressive as a group. But when a European colony is disturbed, on average only 10-15 bees attack. When an African colony is disturbed, 10,000-12,000 bees attack.
Bees in a colony can detect vibrations in the ground up to 50 feet away from the actual colony, and the African bees can detect vibrations from heavy machinery such as tractors up to 100 feet away. However, colonies located more than 30 feet above the ground do not
usually pose any sort of risk.
When bees attack, it is always to defend the colony. Dr. Ellis said that the ONLY defense is to run away as fast as possible. Once out of the bees’ territory, the attack stops. Several dozen stings will be painful but not lethal.
Running is the only defense, and most people can outrun a bee. Do not stay and swat! The colony is probably close and attacking bees are attracted to movement, so swatting just attracts more bees. Don’t hide in underbrush because the bees can fit in there too, and don’t jump in water. Bees may stay agitated for up to 30 minutes after the colony is
disturbed, which is a lot longer than people can hold their breath under water.
If an attack occurs, survival is the only concern. It takes 5-10 stings per pound of body weight before the attack may be lethal, so barring allergies to bee stings, a 100-pound person could survive up to 1,000 stings.
Seek shelter in a building or vehicle. Some stinging bees may make it in too, but the number will be limited and once they sting, they die. If you see someone else being attacked, yell at them to RUN. If they don’t, do not try a rescue yourself because then there would be two
victims instead of one. Call 911.
