Beach News For June

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Sea Turtle Report - June 2022

It was 1962 and three brothers fell in love with Marco Island. According to historical records, Elliott, Robert and Frank Jr., known as the Mackle Brothers, walked on the pristine white sandy beach and fell in love with the beach and the lush surroundings. Two other executives were with them that day, Neil Bahr and Jim Vensel.

Mark Bahr, the son of one of Marco Island’s founding fathers, Neil Bahr, (often referred to as the fourth Mackle Brother) founded Marco Island Water Sports in 1981 and built it into a very successful water sports company. For 41 years, they have provided aquatic adventures such as parasailing, eco-tours, wave runners and the ever popular “Calusa Spirit” a catamaran eco-tour to the Ten Thousand Island. 

Thanks to Brandon Bahr, Vice President of Marco Island Water Sports (the grandson of Neil Bahr) and his team for their June 11th cleanup sponsorship. Brandon was at the beach to personally welcome all the volunteers and to provide cold water. Brandon remarked “I am very honored to be able to sponsor the beach cleanup today.” He shared that his team is on the beach from 6:45 AM to 6:00 PM every day and as part of their routine, they pick up trash as they see it and again before closing of each day.

About 30 volunteers showed up and picked up around 70 pounds of trash. A lot of heavy items were found on the dune. Something new during this cleanup – zip ties! A lot of them – and where do you think they are coming from?

Marco Island PD Report to City Council for April

Officers spent 295 hours patrolling the beaches in April versus 309 hours in March. The number of incidents requiring officer intervention included: debris pick-up/ litter, an increase this month in comparison to last month by 25%; glass on beach, a significant increase this month versus last (almost twice as many) and holes on the beach requiring fill-in, up 150% for April in comparison March.

Bird Count provided by FWC, DEP (Rookery Bay) and Audubon Florida staff for Big Marco Pass Critical Wildlife Area (aka Sand Dollar Island) for early June:

Least Terns, four nests with eggs, along with 58 adults.

Black skimmers, 17 nests and about 468 adults present. 

One Wilson Plover nest inside the posting with eggs. 

According to Rochelle Streker, Southwest Florida Shorebird Manager for Audubon Florida, there are volunteers that go out to steward the nesting Wilson’s Plovers, Black Skimmers and Least Terns on Big Marco Pass on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. There are two volunteer shifts each day (morning shift 9:00 AM to 12:00 Noon) and an afternoon shift (12:30 PM to 3:30 PM.) If you’d like to volunteer, please reach out to Rochelle at Rochelle.streker@audubon.org.

News from Big Marco Pass

According to Jean Hall, a shorebird volunteer for Audubon of the Western Everglades (AWE), the big news is that the Sand Dollar breach is even bigger and at high tide the breach was quite large – maybe 70 feet across at the Gulf. She observed that there are now two lagoons, one south and one north, and even at high tide, the sand is joining the mangroves. She noted that the breakers were strong and there was considerable flushing, of the lagoons very strong currents.

Colony News

Hall was relieved to see that the Black Skimmers are nesting backed way up into the vegetation so they didn’t get washed out with the recent tropical system. Hall also counted 40 Least Terns on the sand, a thrill after years of just a handful showing up on Sand Dollar.