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Status update: Picayune Strand State Forest Restoration Project

For those of you that are unfamiliar with this project, it all stems from a land speculation deal that hoodwinked a lot of home buyers into purchasing swampland in Southern Golden…

Sea turtle team measuring a nesting loggerhead sea turtle at night

Record-breaking sea turtle season on Keewaydin

Our 40th year of sea turtle research and protection has been record-breaking. On Keewaydin Island, we have had a total of 627 nests and 682 false crawls. In addition, 445…

Rad mangrove roots photographed along the water

Mangroves research growing in importance

Mangrove forests are remarkable, forming the building blocks that make up the foundation of a complex coastal ecosystem. These trees support a variety of life, from bacteria that break down…

Loggerhead sea turtle on the beach with a GPS tracker on her back

R2D2 provides amazing insight to researchers

A long, long time ago in an ocean far, far away, R2D2 returned back to the place of her birth – Keewaydin Island in Naples, Florida. Conservancy biologists first encountered…

blue atala butterfly

The Atala Butterfly and the Coontie Plant: A Mutualistic Relationship

By Melinda Schuman | Conservancy Biologist The coontie (Zamia integrifolia) is the only native North American cycad and we are fortunate to have it growing in southwest Florida. Cycads belong…

GoToShell

Smith Preserve teeming with life

The seven-acre Christopher B. Smith Preserve at the Conservancy of Southwest Florida Nature Center consists of primarily scrub habitat and a restored wetland pond. A natural upland and scrub habitat,…

Python Web

Conservancy captures most massive Burmese python in Florida

The Conservancy of Southwest Florida has announced record-breaking developments in its invasive Burmese python research program with the documentation of the largest python found to date in Florida. The female…

Loggerhead On Beach

Celebrating 40 years of sea turtle research

With nesting season underway, the Conservancy of Southwest Florida’s Sea Turtle Research and Monitoring Project is celebrating its 40th Anniversary.

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How leaves shaped the world

Leaves are the solar-powered food factories of the world. Beautiful, compact, and complex, without them the world would be a very different place indeed.

Storm over the Gulf of Mexico

Sea turtle nesting: Ways you can help

How often, alone, do we expose ourselves to the midnight hour? To the boundary of civilized and savage? A ribbon of sand between the tame and turbulent, the known and…