Of Parks, Water Moccasins, and Gators

By -
Here's Ray's report about Sunday's Lakeview Park clean-up, which involved folks from Lake Sarasota and from the Sarasota Sky Pilots. A major thank-you to all who came out to help:

We had a good turn out at the park yesterday.... I think there were 9 or 10 residents signed in on Kim's sign in sheet before Sky Pilots started showing up. Kim left the sign in sheets with Franklin if you want a complete list of people that attended. Got a lot of stuff pulled from the canal. Sky Pilots did mostly trimming of trees hanging in the way of the disc throwing on each of the holes. We completely filled the dumpster & had enough stuff laying by the fence and along the sides of the canal to fill the dumpster two more times.


Caution: water moccasins and gators:

There are water moccasins in the canal! I seen for the first time as I was picking up some branches from the canal's edge a moccasin shot out from under and swam into the canal. I saw it swimming a few minutes later & pointed it out to Bill so he got to see it too. It was about 24 inches long & quite fat! I wonder if we should have a sign warning people about the gator or possibly gators in the canal?


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Bee Ridge Road Public Hearing: Update

By -
On Wed., Oct. 28, at 1 p.m., the Sarasota County Commission will hold a public hearing concerning plans for Bee Ridge Rd. east of I-75. Engineers will explain plans and probably answer questions, and presumably public comment will be invited. The hearing will be in the Commission chambers on Ringling Blvd. For more background on Bee Ridge projects, click here . Important update from the Bee Ridge Neighborhoods Committee : The Public Hearing is still at 1 pm, but the actual presentation from the Engineers has been moved to 4:30 pm on Wed. Oct. 28: County Staff has met with Commissioners earlier this week to secure their input and questions in preparation for the Wednesday, Oct 28 Commissioner meeting. This meeting will begin at 4.30 PM. Bee Ridge Road Construction will be the third agenda item. The County Administration Building is located downtown on Ringling Boulevard, across from the Post Office, just east of Orange Avenue. Come early to secure parking, located behind the building
Read more

Sarasota Baptist's planned development: Careless? Indifferent? Dangerous?

By -
Image
Update: On Nov. 28, 2023,  despite the absence of any traffic study. the Board of Sarasota County Commissioners voted 4-0 to approve the Sarasota Baptist windfall proposal for 87 unaffordable homes on Hand Road.  Six people from the community offered several reasons that a rational judge would consider to be compelling, but not this Board. This commission reads the Comp Plan not as a set of strategies to prevent poor planning, but rather as a mandate to mindlessly approve growth. From the follow-up story in the Sarasota News Leader : The new homes will increase car trips from 66 to 847 daily on crippled Hand Road.  Commissioner Mark Smith noted Transportation staff had provided a chart in the report on the application showing that the daily number of trips on Hand Road linked to the existing zoning, Open Use Estate, was 66. That figure was attributed to data found in the 11th edition of the Institute of Traffic Engineers (ITE) manual, which the Transportation staff uses as its prima
Read more

Water Moccasin or Water Snake?

By -
Image
At the Lakeview Park Clean-Up, some residents were picking up some branches of a tree when a dangerous Water Moccasin slithered out and dashed into the water. It might be useful to know one when you see it, but the differences between the venomous Florida Water Moccasin (or Cottonmouth) and the wholly harmless Water Snake can be subtle. Here are a few images and links that might help. First, here's a Water Moccasin Another shot of a Water Moccasin (click for a huge image): Here's the plain old harmless Florida Water Snake: Another clue (thanks Ray): When in water, Water Moccasins move on top of the water - almost as if they were gliding on the surface, like this: Water Moccasins are to be met with extreme caution. "When a moccasin is nesting or has her young in their nest it will aggressively defend that area," says Ray. "Moccasins have aggressively attacked people." Water Snakes tend to be partly submerged, partly out of the water, more like this: Click f
Read more