Club fees:
$25/yr for current/former LaGoonies
$50/yr for new anglers.
(New angler fees include a rod, reel and tackle box.)
**Please bear with us as we work out the specific times and locations for the club. We will update this event page, our Instagram account and the Facebook event page with finalized information.**
Horseshoe crabs (Limulus polyphemus) are sometimes referred to as ‘living fossils’ because they’ve been around since the Cambrian period over 510 million years ago, and their body structure has changed very little since the age of the dinosaurs (Jurassic period, 200 million years ago).
Keeping this in mind, it’s simply untrue to say that these creatures did not evolve. The horseshoe crab family (Xiphosurida) used to be much more diverse when it first emerged, and it included horseshoe crab relatives with different body shapes such as the extinct boomerang-shaped Austrolimulus and “double-button” Liomesaspis. Despite this, modern horseshoe crabs still have seemingly unchanged body structure from Mesolimulus fossils from the Jurassic period 150 million years ago.
Paleontologists speculate that the horseshoe crab’s body structure hasn’t changed because it found a habitat niche free of competitive pressures that would force them to adapt. Their dome-like shell allows them to remain on the substrate despite wave action and strong currents, while their legs allow them to walk, swim, dig, forage, and mate. What else could a horseshoe crab need?
In other words – if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!
Horseshoe crabs are important for many reasons, one of which being that their eggs are an important food source for fish and migratory shorebirds, while adult horseshoe crabs are prey for sea turtles, sharks, and alligators.
Not only are they important biologically, but they are also important to the biomedical industry for a compound found in their unique, copper-based blue blood called limulus amoebocyte lysate, or LAL. This substance clumps up around bacterial toxins, making it useful to check that medical equipment and injectable drugs are sterile prior to use.
Despite their renowned importance, little is known about Florida horseshoe crab populations other than that they typically spawn between March and November, much earlier than their neighbors in northern states. Horseshoe crabs are currently in decline and with the help of citizen scientists, the FWC has begun documenting important nesting sites. You can be a part of this effort by reporting any horseshoe crab sightings on the FWC website.
Stay tuned for details on our upcoming volunteer horseshoe crab tagging event – This will be happening sometime in March.
“The storytellers begin by calling upon those who came before who passed the stories down to us, for we are only messengers.”
To remember, we must start from the beginning for the beginning of any story is where the heart begins. It is with the heart that we may remember that we belong to this earth and to one another.
My story begins on a warm December day. It was not unlike other Florida days, but for my parents I am sure the sun shined a little brighter that day. I did not grow up in Florida, but upon my return 6 years ago I felt like I finally came home as it was the first time I felt the need to plant some roots. I did so by exploring where I lived. I wanted to know every nook and cranny of Palm Beach County and the surrounding areas – the animals, the plants, the stone, the history. I have made progress, but the more I learned the more I felt starved for more for each thing I learned about had its own origin story to tell.
The Atala Butterfly, once numerous, were nearly snuffed out by the removal of the coontie plant as it is not considered a particularly beautiful plant. Numbers are replenishing as the coontie is being replanted and identified as an ecologically important species.
Photo credit: zoilamartin.com
The Lake Worth Lagoon, once a fresh body of water now turned coastal estuary, has attracted the American Oystercatcher, a threatened species that found a new home among the man-made islands being built in the lagoon to counteract what is known as legacy pollution.
Photo credit: SimonSkafar via iStock
The Everglades, a unique and precariously balanced ecosystem once expanded nearly the width and length of Florida. It has now dwindled down to the most southern counties of the state leaving a wake of habitat loss not to mention our most natural water management system. Efforts are being made to restore the Everglades, but misunderstanding and continued development continues to threaten the lives of the animals, plants, and humans that make Florida their home.
These are just a few of the stories Florida must tell and each of their stories contributes to the tapestry that is Florida. They are the stories that make up our past, contribute to our present, and influence our future. It is imperative to learn these stories to build a relationship with where we live so we understand our role in the greater ecosystem, so we grow in compassion, and in heart – so that we may remember.
The Lake Worth Waterkeeper LaGoonies program has been created to provide people in our community the opportunity to learn these stories. It is why we often visit the same places and explore the same histories of both flora and fauna. And so, it is why we are making this year of LaGoonies programming the ‘Year of the Origin Story’.
Join us, both young and ‘young at heart’, to share in the stories of where we live and contribute to those stories with your personal reflections and experiences. Help us all remember our interconnectedness and belonging.
“A blue-green algae bloom was identified in water discharging to the Lake Worth Lagoon last month with toxin levels high enough to trigger the posting of multiple warning signs at Spillway Park, a popular fishing spot”
-The Palm Beach Post
Towns all over the Lake Worth Lagoon watershed are being subjected to a toxic cyanobacteria bloom that fills the air with a poisonous stench. Humans breathing cyanotoxins have an increased risk of neurodegenerative diseases like amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, Huntington’s disease, and prion diseases –and all are incurable. Pets can be mortally sickened. From the Glades to Palm Beach, we should all RAISE OUR VOICE.
If enough of us take action quickly, our Commissioners should attend the Army Corp of Engineers’ LOSOM meeting on Friday from 9am to 3pm and fight effectively for us.
You can email your comment or testify during public comment period by clicking the button below.
A blue-green algae bloom was identified in water discharging to the Lake Worth Lagoon last month with toxin levels high enough to trigger the posting of multiple warning signs at Spillway Park, a popular fishing spot.
The lagoon is receiving a mix of water that includes discharges from Lake Okeechobee, according to the South Florida Water Management District. The Army Corps of Engineers said Friday it was halting those discharges because of lake-level concerns.
A freshwater infusion was requested by the county because salinity levels in the brackish estuary were getting as high as the ocean, but it asked that the delivery not include lake water that can carry the ingredients for a harmful blue-green algae bloom.
MORE: Why four nesting shorebirds had Palm Beach County officials jumping for joy
RELATED: Islands near at hand in the Lake Worth Lagoon
“Of course, that’s not what we ended up getting. We took Lake Okeechobee water and with that came a cyanobacteria bloom,” said Reinaldo Diaz, founder of Lake Worth Waterkeeper, a lagoon advocacy group.
(Signs posted last month at the spillway between Lake Worth and West Palm Beach warn of blue green algae that was found in water being discharged into the Lake Worth Lagoon. )
The level of toxins measured last month were trace amounts and below what the EPA considers unsafe, but Diaz is concerned dangerous toxin levels could follow as longer days and warmer temperatures encourage cyanobacteria growth.
“If I know there is ANY microcystin in the water, I stay away,” said Florida Atlantic University research professor J. William Louda in an email about the toxin measurement. “Exposure to even low levels, over time, can lead to health problems.”
Florida Department of Environmental Protection officials did not respond to a question about when the water at the spillway would be tested again.
The EPA says toxin levels over 8 parts per billion, or ppb, are unsafe. Tests of the water going into the lagoon that triggered the warning signs were under 1 ppb.
On March 29, similar toxin levels under 1 ppb were found in Lake Okeechobee water near the Port Mayaca Lock and Dam where lake water was being discharged into the St. Lucie estuary. That test triggered a health alert from Martin County. On April 5, U.S. Rep. Brian Mast, R-Palm City, asked in a letter with state Sen. Gayle Harrell, R-Stuart, and state Rep. Toby Overdorf, R-Palm City, that the Army Corps of Engineers end all releases from Lake Okeechobee to the St. Lucie estuary.
“All of our constituents who have lived through a lost summer thanks to discharges from Lake Okeechobee can viscerally remember the look of guacamole thick algal blooms in our waterways and the scent of rotten eggs that accompanied the algae,” the lawmakers wrote.
The Army Corps of Engineers announced Friday it was ending releases to the St. Lucie and reducing releases to the Caloosahatchee after the lake dropped to 14.19 feet this week. That’s about a foot lower than a month ago and within a range the Corps is comfortable with as the rainy season begins May 15.
Col. Andrew Kelly, commander of the Corps’ Jacksonville District, said the lake level, not concerns over algae, was the reason releases were stopped.
Spongy chunks of algae clogged canals on the Caloosahatchee and St. Lucie estuaries in 2016 and 2018. The Lake Worth Lagoon also suffered a noticeable bloom in 2016 that temporarily closed Peanut Island near the July Fourth weekend.
(Green algae blankets Summa Beach Park in West Palm Beach on June 21, 2016.
HANDOUT)
The Corps releases water from Lake Okeechobee into the northern estuaries when lake levels get too high. While the Caloosahatchee and Lake Worth Lagoon require some freshwater to maintain their estuarine habitat, the St. Lucie is less needy.
This year, water managers struggled with too much water from a prolific and lengthy wet season that stressed the vegetation in treatment areas that take nutrients out of water before it goes into the Everglades.
Diaz said the algae bloom is no longer visible at the spillway between Lake Worth and West Palm Beach.
“But if this was a mid-summer bloom and they sent that water it would have been noticeably worse,” he said.
Concerns about the lagoon’s health were raised again Thursday at the South Florida Water Management District’s governing board meeting.
Jeremy McBryan, Palm Beach County’s water resources manager, lamented during public comment that the Lake Worth Lagoon was not getting the same attention when it comes to the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan. The plan, signed in 2000, had components removed or amended that would have helped the lagoon, McBryan said.
Everglades Law Center Executive Director Lisa Interlandi agreed.
“The Lake Worth Lagoon is one part of the system where there is not even any kind of water quality treatment being planned or discussed,” she said.
@Kmillerweather