[URGENT] Mosquito Lagoon Is In Danger, And You Can Help Today
- By: Joseph Simonds
- on
The good news:
With just a simple email (that you can send right now in less than 15 seconds with just a few clicks), you can help save Mosquito Lagoon, one of the world’s best fisheries.
The bad news:
Mosquito Lagoon is in trouble.
Since 2011, seagrass beds have been depleted by 80-90% because of brown tide.
Between 2017 and 2018, documented redfish and trout catches were down 50%+ (and 2017 was already a bad year!).
8-9 years ago, Mosquito Lagoon was ranked #1 out of 28 registered national lagoons.
Today it is ranked #28.
The situation:
There is currently $14 million available in the Merritt Island Mosquito Lagoon Refuge account.
It is set for road repair and dike building, but there’s a loophole.
The refuge (and it’s money) is there to protect the plants and animals of the refuge.
This $14 million can be used to replant seagrass and fix the water flow problem because that is part of the refuge’s core goal.
The catch is, the refuge needs the support and urging of the people to move the funds to start helping the Lagoon now.
That’s where you come in.
What you, I, and every other recreational angler can do is email Kathleen Burchett (regional manager for the National Wildlife Refuge System) and David Jackson (Congressman Posey’s manager) and let them know that we want the funds to be used to start the Mosquito Lagoon seagrass replanting and fix the water flow problem now!
Important Note: We’ve already pre-written the emails for you below the post (including the email addresses for Kathleen and David) so all you need to do is copy, paste, and send
Check out the podcast below for the full story, and scroll down to see how you can quickly and easily email Kathleen Burchett and David Jackson now.
Enjoy!
How You Can Help Save Mosquito Lagoon [Podcast]
You can listen to the podcast by clicking the play button below, or on iTunes or Stitcher.
Note: don’t forget to subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher.
How You Can Help
Since the money is already in their account, and we are all aware of the problem, all the Merritt Island Mosquito Lagoon Refuge needs is your support to help put this plan into action.
Here’s how you can help:
Step 1 (email Kathleen Burchett: kathleen_burchett@fws.gov ). Highlight and copy the below email.
Hello Kathleen,
I am a fisherman, a voter, and someone who is concerned for Mosquito Lagoon. I just listened to the Salt Strong podcast regarding the opportunity we have as a community to help save the struggling Mosquito Lagoon.
I urge you to please find funding to replace the much-needed seagrass and install the Ocean Flow clean up system to help turn around our Lagoon.
I also urge you to consider removing all commercial fishing in Mosquito Lagoon.
Thank you for your service,
Concerned Voter & Angler
Step 2. Click the link below to open an email to Kathleen Burchett.
Click here to email Kathleen Burchett at kathleen_burchett@fws.gov.
Step 3. Paste the text you just copied into the email.
Step 4. Paste this text into the subject line:
I want to save Mosquito Lagoon today
Step 5. Send!
Step 6 (email David Jackson: david.jackson@mail.house.gov ). Highlight and copy the below email.
Dear David,
I am a fisherman, a voter, and someone who is concerned for Mosquito Lagoon. I just listened to the Salt Strong podcast regarding the opportunity we have as a community to help save the struggling Mosquito Lagoon.
I urge you to please find funding to replace the much-needed seagrass and install the Ocean Flow clean up system to help turn around our Lagoon.
I also urge you to consider removing all commercial fishing in Mosquito Lagoon.
Thank you for your service,
Concerned Voter & Angler
Step 7. Click the link below to open an email to David Jackson.
Click here to email David Jackson at david.jackson@mail.house.gov.
Step 8. Paste the text you just copied into the email.
Step 9. Paste this text into the subject line:
I want to save Mosquito Lagoon today
Step 10. Send!
Step 11. Share this with your friends!
Our goal is to send 5,000 emails to each of these people to let them know that we want to save Mosquito Lagoon now.
The seagrass replanting has already been proven in Crystal River, and with the water flow fix we can stop brown tide from getting into the lagoon again and killing the seagrass.
Alright, let’s start sending some emails and save Mosquito Lagoon today!
P.S. the Mosquito Lagoon needs all the help it can get, TAG or SHARE this with your friends! Pa-POW!
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(header image source: www.mosquitolagoonfishcamp.com)
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We need to open the ancient covered inlet at Eddie Creek . Areas around our inlets don’t have this problem, the river gets flushed several times a day. From Ponce Inlet to Sebastian Inlet is over 100 miles. Of the 19 inlets along The East Coast of Florida, his is the longest stretch without an inlet.
Done !!! Something needs to be done asap… its far from what it used to be
Done!
Being in the seagrass restoration field and producing solid results for over 20 years this sounds great! However it sounds like the funds will be spent padding the pockets of non profit groups or using snake oil Seagrass salesman!! In order to properly replant the lagoon millions of plants will need to be planted. Those plants are not readily available and would need to be produced in large scale Aquaculture facilities. It would be a waste of money to cage plants like done in Crystal River. If you overplant the herbivores you don’t need to spend money on cleaning cages and maintenance! We planted over 100,000 plants in Corpus Christi Texas and achieved 80% survival. Within a year scallops were found within the planting area. This plea for funding sounds like a payday for someone other than the environment!!!
So let’s get real the manatee population is out of control, you love them you protect them and gee they eat all the vegetation, But hey there were very few of them back in 1954, So good luck n a solution.
Emails sent!
Thank you for spotlighting this opportunity to show our support for our amazing, fragile waterways and fisheries.
Done
Emails sent!
DONE and DONE!!!
Mosquito Lagoon is a fishing resource we anglers and all Floridians need to protect. I have fished there for many years and it is a shame to see what we have done to such a beautiful area.
For those of you who were not around the Indian River and Mosquito Lagoon and all inland waterways back in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, the fishing was very poor. Then, Florida Sportsmen magazine began to publish petitions in their magazine in an effort similar to this to ban inland waterway netting. Ultimately the indiscriminate gill netting was banned and our fishing resource returned.
By rallying the people and petitioning our state representatives we were able to make positive changes. This is a very valid cause and it is up to all of us to save our natural resources.
I fished the ML and IRL when I was at UCF in 88-92. I wish it was nice enough to take my 16 year old son back there to fish. we probably will go up there soon and take his Gheenoe so that he will have a baseline.
But,
This guy is a NIMBY. He speaks very clearly about the subject but is basing his opinion on five years of experience in the area. He’s got a good schtick but it’s flawed. Listening to anything that a water management district (WMD) suggests is deeply flawed. To put these flood gates/ pipes out to the ocean is deeply flawed. There have been occasional openings after storms but they always close up. There’s a reason for that; it is not the way it’s supposed to be. The WMDs have messed up the watershed all over Florida by doing stuff just like this without fully testing the results. Lowering the impacts of flood events, fertilizing your lawns, spraying herbicides and pesticides all add up to terrible runoff. That runoff goes into your local waters. Planting seagrass is fine but without better water quality and delivery it will not last more than a few seasons or so. I’ll put one answer out there, move back to wherever it is you and your neighbor came from.