January 21, 2010 - Fruit frozen, wildlife stunned by the coldJANUARY 21, 2010
Fruit frozen, wildlife
stunned bv the cold
In my last article I spoke of the coldest weather
we had experienced in Florida in the past five years.
Little did I know at the time that was only the prelud
to record - breaking days of bitter cold to come. The
temperature at night dropped to 36 degrees on our
outside thermometer, but we live on an island and,
similar to Long Island, we are warmed by the water
around us. Further inland and north of us the tem-
peratures dropped into the 20s and in some places
into the teens. In the daytime, 40s and 50s were com-
mon, with chilling winds that went through you.
We tried to save some of our plants by bringing
them indoors and
FOCUS ON NATURE pug sheets over
what we left outside.
Even with that, were
not sure how much
we were able to save
— and that was noth-
ing compared to what
was happening to the
PAUL STOUTENBURGH strawberry farms and
orange groves in the
area. Having visited the Mixon Fruit Farm last year,
we were interested to know how the fruit was hold-
ing up under the cold. The television kept showing
oranges coated with ice, but when I spoke with Janet
Mixon, she told me they had covered their plants
in the butterfly garden area with eight inches of
foam to save them and at 2 a.m. that morning they
had turned on their micro jets to spray a mist of
64- degree groundwater over the grove, which keeps
the fruit from freezing. She told me their grove is
protected from the cold unless it gets down to 28
degrees for four hours straight.
Many in Florida have probably seen how the high-
ways have been affected and closed down due to sink
holes from the heavy use of water to save area pro-
duce. While most of the talk and concern down here
at first had been about oranges and strawberries, little
did we realize how many other things would eventu-
ally be affected by the long - lasting cold temperatures.
This spotted sandpiper visiting our dock area appeared
be picking up bits and pieces of what was left of some
the cold weathers victims.
We heard that a leatherback turtle had come
ashore and was picked up by Fish and Wildlife and
taken to the Mote Aquarium. We took a trip there, a
place similar to Atlantis Marine World in Riverhead.
The five - foot -long, 787 -pound leatherback turtle
had already been released. In the short time it was
there, it had been placed in a medical pool to try to
help it. The concern was to get it back in the water as
soon as possible. The leatherback turtle is the largest
living reptile in the world and the largest and most
endangered of all sea turtle species. Many years ago,
I photographed one of these huge turtles dead on the
East Marion -Orient causeway. What a Goliath it was!
Sea turtles all over the state are being taken in
to warm them up. Two hundred sea turtles were
whisked away to shelters in one part of the state,
where they were being warmed up in heated pools
after the cold water had shocked their systems, and
40 more were taken to another area; everyone in-
volved workedto warm the turtles up so they could
be returned to the water as soon as possible. Calls
went out for blankets and warm coverings to help
get these animals warmed up. Workers also needed
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donations of money to help support their work. Still,
many turtles do not make it once they have been
hit by the cold. Freshwater turtles do not hide in the
mud when the waters get cold like saltwater turtles
do. Our diamondback turtles, whose heads we see
as we canoe or kayak around our creeks and bays,
go to the bottom and hide in the mud to keep warm.
This unusual cold snap is deadly for tropical wild-
life. It is killing animals accustomed to a temperate
climate. Iguanas up to six feet long, cold - blooded
reptiles, just dropped out of the trees as theyfost
their grip in the cold.
p t� manatees in some places huddled into
dray canals around the power plants trying to
-ep warm until the water warms up so they can
rove out into the bigger water ways. Some mana-
es can weigh up to 3,000 pounds.
Today the warming trend began. The sun was out
id folks were walking about. Down the street toward
e bay we could see people wading in the cold water
cking up large fish stunned in the cold waters. A
an came by walking his dog. He sat down, took off
s shoes and socks and jumped into the water to
ck up a large grouper that he took home with him.
ther large fish were picked up, filleted and given to
iyone who had a plastic bag in their pocket.
Toward evening, as we watched from our win -
)w, we saw a small bird fly to the dock. We got out
.u• binoculars and looked to see what it might be.
le first clue was that we could see it bobbing as
searched the dock, then it flew down among the
icks to forage. Sure enough, true to form, this small
n and white bird with its light eye line teetering on
ie rocks was a spotted sandpiper.
As we walked down to the pier later and looked
rer the side, we could see big fish lying on the rocks
id needlefish dead in the water. Someone had
►read fish on the beach and we just had to get a
cture to show the variety and size of fish that were
ctims of the cold. Perhaps this is only the begin -
ng of what we will see as the water warms and the
;h bodies at the bottom float to the surface.
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