Blog Number 6; 5/26/2021; Field Work!

     I was not able to post my blog on Friday due to the fact that I was actually in the greater Everglades ecosystem. There is barely any Wi-Fi there, I just got back Monday night, and it was my sisters birthday yesterday (and I was extremely sore). So yeah, I'm doing this today. This weekend was probably one of the most important and influential weekends of my adolescent life. This weekend, was my first ever payed expedition for conservation and research!

    Let me catch all of you up on how we got to this position. There is a hockey team called the Florida Panthers, named after the endangered subspecies of the puma with the same name. It one of the rarest mammals of North America and the rarest cat in the world. Recently, a family friend was hired to be the new general manager for the Panthers. Due to this, his wife has started multiple community projects in Miami and all of southern Florida. These range from teaching hockey to underprivileged children to breast cancer awareness, but the one we are focusing on is conservation and protection of Florida's native big cat, the panther. This is where I get involved. The Zetos (who are the family I have been referring to), know extensively about my passion for wildlife conservation and Florida wildlife. I have also become quite exceptional at tracking animals and placing trail cameras. Trail cameras are motion activated cameras that people put in the wilderness to view the wildlife of an area. The website Zooniverse has many great trail cams to view, I recommend it. 

    I also am colleagues with the National Geographic sponsored organization, The Path of the Panther (POTP). This is an organization who specializes in spreading awareness of panthers and helping protect them. I have shared some of my personal research with them, as well as a video conference, so they know of my existence. There is also the Florida Wildlife Corridor (FWC), which focusses on much broader ecosystems and animals, not just panthers. There efforts have been extraordinary successful, with Florida currently having almost a third of the state federally protected.

    Mrs. Zeto has assigned my with the task of setting up a partnership between the hockey team and the conservation organization(s). Before they got into any charity work, they wanted some photos of the panther as well as other native Florida wildlife for them to use, for their website and promotional reasons. With knowledge of my tracking ability, they gave us five trail cameras, and flew my father and I down for the weekend to obtain such pictures. I already have a good amount of pictures containing Florida wildlife (I have been doing wildlife photography since the 7th grade), but they wanted to have a weekly update of animals to put on their website. We flew into Sarasota, and drove south for a few hours to reach the greater Everglades ecosystem. The trail cams given to us could take pictures at both day and night, and send them to my phone. This is extremely helpful, so we do not have to go to the camera every time we want to check it.

    After obtaining the proper permits, we went down to a road near Big Cypress called Jane's Scenic Drive. It is a 6 mile dirt road that goas through swamps and forests. We have seen many animals there before, such as gators, ibis, cooters, owls, anoles, turkey, and bobcats. Our main reason for going there is the last time we placed a cam here, we saw a panther. While we were down there, we placed two cameras at a game trail, one where we found gator tracks, one in an open space near a den of sorts, and one near a source of fresh water. This allowed us to get a almost full survey of the forest and its inhabitants. 

    While down there, we also met with one representative from POTP and one from FWC. We discussed ways of using the hockey team to get donation and spread awareness. A few ideas we came up with were getting the players into the field, using my puppets to spread awareness to kids, have money donated every time panther scores, and doing a panther night once the stadium fully reopens. All of these projects are planned for the 2021-2022 season. This is so all logistics can be resolved.  

    The first couple of days of the camera being up we got coyotes, bobcats, owls, deer, and even a gopher tortoise. Yesterday morning, when I checked the camera, we had gotten a healthy male panther! I cannot believe I was sent down to do this, it was so exciting and amazing. This could be the start of my future career. I guess I will have to follow my grandfather's advice, "A man does not know where he is going, but he knows how to get there."