Five agents offer day long look at ecosystem
Extension agents from five counties combined their knowhow to deliver a course last month at the St. Joseph Bay Buffer Preserve on “St. Joseph Bay: By Land and Sea.”
The University of Florida/IFAS Extension faculty was reintroducing their acclaimed “Panhandle Outdoors LIVE!” series by focusing on an ecosystem home to some of the richest concentrations of flora and fauna on the northern Gulf Coast.
This area supports an amazing diversity of fish, aquatic invertebrates, turtles and other species of the marsh and pine flatwoods, and that’s what these adult participants learned about.
On June 21, the day opened with a talk by Rick O’Connor, from Escambia County, on the diamondback terrapin ecology, followed by an exploration by Erik Lovestrand, from Franklin County, of snakes, lizards and the Cuban tree frog.
Ray Bodrey, from Gulf County, spoke on the bay scallop and its habitat. Bay County’s Scott Jackson addressed the topic on artificial reefs and the derelict vessel program, in remarks he called “The Hard Structures.”
Following lunch, the entire group took a tram tour of the buffer preserve, which included a walk in the mangroves.
Meet the Editor
David Adlerstein, The Apalachicola Times’ digital editor, started with the news outlet in January 2002 as a reporter.
Prior to then, David Adlerstein began as a newspaperman with a small Boston weekly, after graduating magna cum laude from Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts. He later edited the weekly Bellville Times, and as business reporter for the daily Marion Star, both not far from his hometown of Columbus, Ohio.
In 1995, he moved to South Florida, and worked as a business reporter and editor of Medical Business newspaper. In Jan. 2002, he began with the Apalachicola Times, first as reporter and later as editor, and in Oct. 2020, also began editing the Port St. Joe Star.