South Florida battling an explosive expansion of invasive freshwater fish | Miami Herald

OCHOPEE 

Out in the Big Cypress swamp, across the street from the country’s smallest post office in a wilderness the size of Rhode Island, a canal is teeming with something unexpected: aquarium fish usually found in a pet shop.

Orange-striped Mayan cichlids dart among boldly spotted tilapia and ruby-colored African jewelfish.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/environment/article140670663.html#storylink=cpy

South Florida battling an explosive expansion of invasive freshwater fish | Miami Herald

Coral Gables moves to become first city in Florida to ban plastic bags | Miami Herald

After a victory in court last week over its Styrofoam ban, Coral Gables plans to discuss a similar restriction — banning plastic bags by retailers and at city events.

The item will likely be considered at Tuesday’s City Commission meeting. Commissioner Vince Lago, who sponsored the polystyrene ban, is also sponsoring the plastic bag ordinance.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/coral-gables/article137446578.html#storylink=cpy

Coral Gables moves to become first city in Florida to ban plastic bags | Miami Herald

Researchers find better way to identify reefs that draw sharks and other big predators | Miami Herald

Not all reefs are created equal, a distinction that fish seem to recognize but until now scientists largely overlooked.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/environment/article135825953.html#storylink=cpy

Researchers find better way to identify reefs that draw sharks and other big predators | Miami Herald

Is Florida moving too slow to save the Everglades?

Zooming over the vast Everglades in a helicopter, it’s easy to see how much work is being done to revive the wilted watershed:

Newly restored bends in the Kissimmee River are resurrecting floodplains and wetlands to clean and slow the flow of dirty water running from farms and cities into Lake Okeechobee. Reservoirs are underway east and west of the lake to hold more water. To the south, sprawling treatment areas to scrub pollution from farm runoff water were expanded last year. Of 26 massive culverts needed to shore up the lake’s aging dike, 21 are under contract. And new and reconfigured canals began delivering more water in 2016 than ever before to Everglades National Park. To name a few.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/environment/article130702984.html#storylink=cpy

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/environment/article130702984.html

West Texas family finds rattlesnake in toilet, others living underneath house | Miami Herald

JONES COUNTY, TEXAS 

Flush carefully.

A West Texas family had no idea what was living under their house until something slithered out of the toilet.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/national/article130288709.html#fmp#storylink=cpy

West Texas family finds rattlesnake in toilet, others living underneath house | Miami Herald

Indian snake hunters imported by state to track pythons in Florida Everglades | Miami Herald

Silicon Valley, with its insatiable need for highly skilled foreign labor, especially from India, has nothing on us. South Florida is downright desperate for the imported expertise of Masi Sadaiyan and Vadivel Gopal.

Google, Apple, Oracle, Intel — all have begged the feds to relax limits on how many software engineers with advanced degrees and “specialty skills” they can import from the Europe and Asia, especially the Indian subcontinent.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/fred-grimm/article129004659.html#storylink=cpy

Indian snake hunters imported by state to track pythons in Florida Everglades | Miami Herald

Python vs. Gator: Rare video captures battle to the death

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/broward/article124288464.html

Think sharks are scary? There’s a new critter swimming in Biscayne Bay

South Florida’s most aggressive invasive species has found a new way to grab headlines: slither atop a research platform in Biscayne Bay.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/environment/article123211614.html#storylink=cpy

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/environment/article123211614.html

These 'crazy ants' love to munch on cellphones and TVs. Are they headed your way? | Miami Herald

Of the nonnative animals crawling, buzzing and slithering across the American South, very few are officially designated "crazy."

The crazy ant is an exception. When a Texas exterminator, Tom Rasberry, spotted ants moving in an erratic swarm in 2002, the strange insects took his name: Rasberry crazy ants. A decade later, after biologists completed the species' taxonomic identification, they renamed the ant in Latin Nylanderia fulva. In English, they dropped the Rasberry but kept the crazy, and now the tawny crazy ant marches across Texas.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/national/article119116923.html#fmp#storylink=cpy

These 'crazy ants' love to munch on cellphones and TVs. Are they headed your way? | Miami Herald

ZooMiami opens long overdue Everglades exhibit | Miami Herald

When Zoo Miami opens its new $33 million Mission Everglades exhibit on Dec. 10, one of the main attractions will be Clarita the crocodile, housed in a tricked-out tank expected to wow visitors with a plexiglass tube for nose-to-snout encounters with the rare 11-foot reptile and her neighbors.

But what’s equally remarkable is how Clarita got here, a journey that covers South Florida’s sometimes wacky history and its complicated relationship with the imperiled marshes.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/environment/article118577318.html#storylink=cpy

ZooMiami opens long overdue Everglades exhibit | Miami Herald

Sprawl could gobble up another 5 million acres in Florida by 2070

Over the next 50 years, Florida’s swelling population is expected to gobble up another 15 percent — or 5 million acres — of the state’s disappearing farms, forests and unprotected green space, according to a new study released Thursday.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/environment/article102028332.html#storylink=cpy

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/environment/article102028332.html