Nature Wise

08/23/2011

This is the time of year to keep your eye out for Monarch caterpillars on your milkweed plants. I saw several baby caterpillars on the milkweed in my yard this morning and my mother in PA has several on her milkweed now too. There are many milkweed species native to Florida which you can purchase at a local native plant nursery near you. The Tropical Milkweed pictured here is fairly easy to find at Home Depot. I get mine at the S. Orange Blossom Trail Home Depot. Although it is not native to Florida, it does allow crucial food for monarch caterpillars. And it’s so exciting to see the pupa hatch into a beautiful butterfly.

08/19/2011

Nature Wise TV's Tracy McCommon traveled Thursday to Ponce Inlet, FL to interviews Andrew Howe of Cranewoods Development. Andrew is the first Florida real estate developer to pay for the humane relocation of the now endangered Florida Gopher Tortoises under a new rule in 2006 allowing for their emergency humane relocation. Tracy also interviewed US Humane Society FL State Director Jennifer Hobgood who was instrumental in making this important GT relocation possible. This inspiring story to be featured in the upcoming Nature Wise TV program Save Space for the Gopher Tortoise to be released this fall.

08/09/2011

The US Fish & Wildlife Service just announced GOPHER TORTOISE's in the Southeastern United States (east of Mobile Bay, Alabama) WARRANT FEDERAL PROTECTION as ENDANGERED species. However, the Service is precluded from beginning work immediately on a listing proposal because its limited resources must be devoted to other, higher priority actions. But the hope is that inclusion on the ENDANGERED SPECIES CANDIDATES LIST will increase protection and conservation efforts in the next few years by private landowners and state and federal agencies in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi and South Carolina so the extinction of the Gopher Tortoise can be avoided.

08/09/2011

Nature Wise's Executive Director Tracy McCommon gives presentation to full house at the Ladies & Men of the Hanover Country Club luncheon in Pennsylvania last Thursday. She spoke about fostering pollinators and showcased her Wildlife Matters TV Program called Gardening for Native Pollinators: Butterflies & Moths. She also handed out fliers highlighting various species of butterfly nectar and host plants native to Pennsylvania.

07/26/2011

Last Thursday, Nature Wise's Tracy McCommon traveled to Gold Head Branch State Park, just north of Gainesville in Keystone Heights, FL, to video Gopher Tortoise for our upcoming TV program 'Save Space for the Gopher Tortoise'. At this park, which straddles FL’s Northern Highlands & Trail Ridge, GT's enjoy very sandy soil in which they can easily dig their burrows. Here, Tracy also interviewed Florida Fish & Wildlife's Deborah Burr and Joan Berish, both instrumental in helping to conserve the Gopher Tortoise through the new GT Management Plan. Picture here Lt. to Rt. (Joan Berish, Deborah Burr, and Tracy McCommon).

07/26/2011

Nature Wise working to help Sierra Club FL/Central FL to create video educating citizens about the new proposed city of FARMTON...a development "in the middle of nowhere" in Volusia County which includes 23,000 residential units and 4 million sq. ft. of commercial use on remote, environmentally sensitive land. Here Tracy shoots a shot of some of the environmentally sensitive land at Farmton for the upcoming video.

07/18/2011

Scrub Jay takes a VERY CLOSE look at Tracy's video camera. While videotaping Gopher Tortoise last Thursday at the Lyonia Preserve in Volusia County, a Scrub Jay flew right on my video camera's "DEAD CAT" wind protector. He picked at it vigorously with his beak. I guess he thought it was a real CAT. They are such curious birds...and don't seem to have a fear of humans like other wildlife.

07/12/2011

July is sea turtle nesting season and now is a great time to see for yourself just what a mother sea turtle goes through to lay her eggs. Sign up today for a Sea Turtle Walk at the Canaveral National Seashore and view something very few people ever get to see in real life. Learn more by visiting this website.

Canaveral National Seashore Sea Turtle Nesting Season - Join a Florida Nesting Sea Turtle Walk - - Florida Sea Turtle Nesting Locations

07/05/2011

Sometimes it takes extreme efforts like a backhoe to get a gopher tortoise out of its burrow that would otherwise be entombed by development. However, as the U.S. Humane Society officials agree, this is better than their burrow entrances being covered with concrete and taking them up to a year to die of starvation, suffocation and dehydration…an excruciating kind of death. More in our coming TV show SAVE SPACE FOR THE GOPHER TORTOISE.

06/30/2011

If you love nature and have never been to Hilton Head, SC you have got to go! A bird watchers dream and wildlife friendly. Click to watch this video, included in our RAW series, which I filmed on a recent family vacation there, to learn more.

Come with us as we explore Hilton Head Island, South Carolina (a bird watchers paradise) and discover some of the great things they're doing there to preserv...

06/23/2011

Here is a non-venomous Florida Pine Snake. which is one of only 400 species of animals that use Gopher Tortoise burrows. As we are working on our next TV program called 'Save Space for the Gopher Tortoise' we will post various tidbits about the Gopher Tortoise, which is the only remaining land tortoise in the Southeastern United States. Protecting the GT helps protect entire ecosystems.