here's what caught my spirit in April

happy spring - it's great to be alive

a friend of mine's selfie

the adventures of the SEA TEAM

this is the classroom at my granddaughter's middle school
and this is the after school club called Sea Team

it's so cool

the room is full of aquariums

this is Em and her friend cleaning the turtle tank

so cute

they are all responsible for a tank

this is Em's

the goldfish tank - they look pretty darn healthy to me

this is a fish in the largest tank

these guys are in the same tank - they are huge

 they are Em's favorite and of course they have names

she knows all of them all and I can't remember any of them, sorry

this is a very large saltwater tank

it has many colored fish and a couple small shrimp,

sea stars and some living coral

it is my favorite

the next one is marked caution

because they are breeding fish

there were hundreds of tiny babies

pretty proud of our girl and the club 

this is their new shirts

one of the sponsors for the shirts was the 

Lemon Bay Conservancy - a local environmental non-profit

they invited the Team to get out in the field and help them with

Tarpon Tagging**

that's a lot of kids for Saturday morning at 7 AM

the biologists come down from Mote Marine Laboratory

to tag juvenile Tarpon

they are the authorities here in SW Florida

here's the boat out dragging the net for fish

this is a small saltwater inlet off Lemon Bay

in a new area they recently acquired and call the Wildflower Preserve

the best part about this weeks tagging

was that it was being filmed for "Field and Stream" magazine 

watch for our photo in next falls issue.....

the kids were happy and had a great time

even if they got a little wet and dirty

now they are pulling in the net

we didn't get any fish at this site this week

but last Saturday we got a big one here

now they are putting the boat in the next site

waiting for the net to be dragged

last week Em wrote down the data for the biologist

(who by the way is a woman and a great role model)

the Tarpon

she was very proud to be chosen for this special job

this is interesting I thought -

the fish sort of go into a coma

and if you just put them in the water - they drop like a stone

but if you wiggle them like they would wiggle - head opposite tail

they wake up and swim away....

there are of course 

some dangers to being in the field

happy to say we did not lose any kids to alligators

that day

**1.  I am not now and have never been an advocate for fish tagging or any       other kind of biological tagging 

   2. I am not interested in Tarpon, they are not normally a fish for eating,             they are a trophy fish - again SW Florida

really guys??  this is gross 

much more beautiful alive than on your wall

and 3.  I will need to write a separate blog on what I have learned about the "environmental" non-profits here in the playground of the wealthy....