FGCU softball senior balances EMT training and Regional playHomes For Our Troops grants veteran new home
PUNTA GORDA The Weather Authority helps you prepare for the hurricane season at the 2024 Charlotte County Hurricane Expo With hurricane season less than two weeks away, it’s important to start preparing.
GAINESVILLE FGCU softball senior balances EMT training and Regional play Ahead of NCAA Regional play, FGCU senior outfielder Riley Oakes started EMT training as she works toward being a trauma surgeon.
PUNTA GORDA Homes For Our Troops grants veteran new home Through all the cheers and a community-wide escort, it’s a ‘welcome to your forever home for army sergeant veteran Brandon Rethmel and his family.
ALVA Three dead in triple drowning near the Franklin Lock in Olga The Lee County Sheriff’s Office is responding to a scene of a water rescue where three people were recovered.
SOUTHWEST FLORIDA Beat the Heat: Stay safe during extreme weather The Weather Authority has issued a heat advisory for portions of South, Southeast, and Southwest Florida from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Saturday.
FORT MYERS Leaders discuss possibility of shutting down Caloosahatchee Bridge Should residents endure two years of partial lane closures, or fully shut the Caloosahatchee bridge down for 10 weeks?
GAINESVILLE FGCU softball parents cherish NCAA Tournament experience The parents of the FGCU softball team are relishing seeing their daughters play in the NCAA Tournament.
SOUTHWEST FLORIDA The Weather Authority: Hot, hot, hot Heat advisory in place for Saturday until 8 p.m.
FORT MYERS Fort Myers teen finds dead body in bed of his truck A 16-year-old in Fort Myers drove to school, drove home, drove to the barbershop and back home again. Then, he noticed a swarm of flies in the back of his truck.
Scottie Scheffler facing felony charges; local attorney reacts The attorney we spoke with told us that, at a minimum, we’d spend the night in jail before having our first appearance and getting bail.
GAINESVILLE FGCU softball falls to No. 4 Florida in NCAA Tournament The FGCU softball team couldn’t keep up with the No. 4 Florida Gators as the Eagles drop their first Regional game 6-0 to the Gators.
Summer Safety: Swim safety tips to know before the summer The pool is warming up to be the hot spot for kids and families this summer. It’s now also the number one leading cause of drowning deaths for children ages 1-4 in the state.
FORT MYERS BEACH ‘The Whale’ restaurant to break ground on new building The Whale is a place that has shown great strength and determination.
COLLIER COUNTY Endangered Florida panther deaths surpass 2023 total in 5 months It’s taken wildlife officials just over five and a half months to report finding more dead endangered Florida panthers than in all of 2023.
FORT MYERS FMPD honors 7 officers and 2 K-9s who died in the line of duty dating back to 1930 Nine lives were given, and all nine will remain remembered. A lifetime of gratitude for the fallen officers.
PUNTA GORDA The Weather Authority helps you prepare for the hurricane season at the 2024 Charlotte County Hurricane Expo With hurricane season less than two weeks away, it’s important to start preparing.
GAINESVILLE FGCU softball senior balances EMT training and Regional play Ahead of NCAA Regional play, FGCU senior outfielder Riley Oakes started EMT training as she works toward being a trauma surgeon.
PUNTA GORDA Homes For Our Troops grants veteran new home Through all the cheers and a community-wide escort, it’s a ‘welcome to your forever home for army sergeant veteran Brandon Rethmel and his family.
ALVA Three dead in triple drowning near the Franklin Lock in Olga The Lee County Sheriff’s Office is responding to a scene of a water rescue where three people were recovered.
SOUTHWEST FLORIDA Beat the Heat: Stay safe during extreme weather The Weather Authority has issued a heat advisory for portions of South, Southeast, and Southwest Florida from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Saturday.
FORT MYERS Leaders discuss possibility of shutting down Caloosahatchee Bridge Should residents endure two years of partial lane closures, or fully shut the Caloosahatchee bridge down for 10 weeks?
GAINESVILLE FGCU softball parents cherish NCAA Tournament experience The parents of the FGCU softball team are relishing seeing their daughters play in the NCAA Tournament.
SOUTHWEST FLORIDA The Weather Authority: Hot, hot, hot Heat advisory in place for Saturday until 8 p.m.
FORT MYERS Fort Myers teen finds dead body in bed of his truck A 16-year-old in Fort Myers drove to school, drove home, drove to the barbershop and back home again. Then, he noticed a swarm of flies in the back of his truck.
Scottie Scheffler facing felony charges; local attorney reacts The attorney we spoke with told us that, at a minimum, we’d spend the night in jail before having our first appearance and getting bail.
GAINESVILLE FGCU softball falls to No. 4 Florida in NCAA Tournament The FGCU softball team couldn’t keep up with the No. 4 Florida Gators as the Eagles drop their first Regional game 6-0 to the Gators.
Summer Safety: Swim safety tips to know before the summer The pool is warming up to be the hot spot for kids and families this summer. It’s now also the number one leading cause of drowning deaths for children ages 1-4 in the state.
FORT MYERS BEACH ‘The Whale’ restaurant to break ground on new building The Whale is a place that has shown great strength and determination.
COLLIER COUNTY Endangered Florida panther deaths surpass 2023 total in 5 months It’s taken wildlife officials just over five and a half months to report finding more dead endangered Florida panthers than in all of 2023.
FORT MYERS FMPD honors 7 officers and 2 K-9s who died in the line of duty dating back to 1930 Nine lives were given, and all nine will remain remembered. A lifetime of gratitude for the fallen officers.
Despite Hurricane Ian, Sanibel-Captiva beaches are on track to have a record sea turtle nesting season. So far, over 500 nests have scattered across the beaches. Sanibel Captiva Conservation Foundation’s sea turtle team monitors nests and tags nesting females. As the sun begins to set, SCCF’s sea turtle team’s work is just getting started. “So tonight, we’re gonna do one of our typical like routine nighttime tagging surveys,” said Jack Brzoza SCCF biologist. “We’re trying to find nesting females, as they’re coming onshore to lay their eggs.” The team traverses 18 miles from Bowman’s Beach to the Sanibel lighthouse back and forth from 9 at night until 5:30 in the morning. “We’re out there in the dark,” Brzoza said. “We don’t want to use any white light, because it’s really discouraging for the turtles and hatchlings as well, as we start having nests begin to hatch. More often than we see the turtle, we see the track. So where the turtles crawled up the beach, you know, at that point, we’ll stop. You know, we’ll wait a little bit we’ll assess maybe where the turtle is what she’s doing.” In this case, laying her eggs, each flipper move is a contraction. “So right now she’s finished covering her egg chamber, and she’s starting to use her front flippers to kind of camouflage so she’s moving a lot of sand around, and an effort to sort of disguise and kind of obscure where exactly that clutch is located at,” Brzoza said. The team checks for tags and checks to see if the turtles have been tagged before. “To see if we can identify them as an individual,” Brzoza said. “We just looked her up in the data book and this is Ella Fitzgerald,” said Kayla Hopper, SCCF nighttime tagging intern. “We’ll apply tags, if they don’t have them. We’ll take morphometric data. So measurements.” “We can record, you know, any injuries or abnormalities with that turtle, epi biotic loads, things like that, and kind of get a sense of our nesting population a little bit,” Brzoza said. Once she heads to the gulf, the team marks the nest, placing a cage over the eggs and creates a barrier around the nest. By tagging the animals, scientists create a roadmap of their lives. “So we can get a sense of these life histories, we can kind of see, as these turtles are recruiting to the nesting beach, we can identify them as tags, know where they were coming from, where they’re spending their, you know, foraging grounds and protecting those areas,” Brzoza said. “These are areas we need to protect, because the turtles need that to continue to survive and prosper.” The team has encountered 158 turtles so far this season and have tagged 75, three of those on Friday night. The rest were tagged between 2016 and 2021.