Elizabeth Biro

Some Collier County second graders learned how to love and better understand the environment on Wednesday.

Tarpon Bay on Sanibel has dead fish showing up. It’s the kind that leaves a little tickle in your throat after you smell it.

Most research on alligators is done in large preserves like the Everglades, but a team from Florida Gulf Coast University wants to learn more about the alligators that live closer to humans. Encountered in the wild, alligators can be frightening—beady eyes shining in the water after sundown. If you’re not from Florida, you may run […]

As Southwest Florida continues to heal after Hurricane Ian, so do its waterways, but one area is experiencing something that may have you doing a double take. There are bright, almost neon green, algae in the waters off Sanibel. It’s hard to miss. “Especially on the causeway, you will notice it when you’re driving across […]

Lingering red tide, health alerts, and debris in Southwest Florida waterways may have you thinking twice before swimming, but there are other ways to enjoy the outdoors here, like visiting the Corkscrew Regional Ecosystem Watershed trails. Walking around the Corkscrew Regional Ecosystem Watershed, CREW for short, has been compared to walking into old Florida. “The […]

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission red tide map still shows medium to high concentrations around Sanibel and Pine Island Sound. Scientists are using red tide data and weather forecasts to better inform people when a bloom might impact their health. They are also getting help from citizen scientists who are casting a line […]

It’s taken nearly two decades, but the Herbert Hoover Dike rehabilitation project is complete. The rehabilitation project started four presidents ago, in 2005. To the people living around the lake, its completion means protecting their lives and livelihood. The snip of scissors marked the completion of repairs to the Herbert Hoover Dike. “This construction project began […]

From the ivory-billed woodpecker to the Carolina parakeet, countless animals are now extinct. FGCU’s Billy Gunnels knows that’s part of earth’s history. “Some of these mass extinctions have been terrible when we’ve lost more than 90% of the organisms on the planet,” said Gunnels, professor and chair of the Biological Sciences program at FGCU. “Things […]

Mangroves are protected wetland ecosystems. People cannot build on or within them as they do so much for us, the water, and animals. WINK News environmental reporter Liz Biro spoke with two groups studying the mangroves after Hurricane Ian. Getting to the mangroves is the easy part. Getting through the mangroves, with their dense intertwining […]

What’s the future going to look like here in Florida? At the Southwest Florida Climate and Community Initiative Summit, environmental leaders, businesses, and politicians all discussed climate change. “Florida as a peninsula. A little bit of sea level rise can have a big impact here,” said Noah Valenstein, a presidential fellow at FGCU. Sea level […]