Field Trip 6/13/13

During this field trip at Lovers key it was very cool to walk around the beach and see everything the small island has to offer. The main part of the field  trip was our talk about what the strip of islands along the west coast of Florida has to offer. Not only does the islands offer a barrier from strong coastal winds but it provides an extremely beneficial bay area where tons of game fish come from see to lay their eggs. This drives our economy and fishing industry.

People from all over the world come to our beaches to go on fishing trips and this alone provides a great amount of revenue. A main part of why our bay area is so important is because of the mangroves that provide protection for these fish. The Red mangroves (or walking trees) provide excellent homes for these fish. This is because of the hanging branches that envelop an area where larger predator fish cannot enter. Not only do we have a large amount of game fish developing in our bay area but the shrimping industry is also excellent. I got a small glimpse of this walking out on the dock picture below. At this dock there were tons of schools of bait fish and under the dock there were very large snook and other fish.