SANIBEL, Fla. \u2014 Six months ago, Fox 4 Meteorologist Andrew Shipley planted a few tiny mangroves at Clam Bayou as part of the Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation\u2019s (SCCF) \u201cAdopt a Mangrove\u201d program. Now, those seedlings have some serious company \u2014 and they\u2019re thriving.<\/p>\n
Six Months Later: mangrove restoration thrives at Clam Bayou<\/p>\n
\u201cThey have grown at least a foot,\u201d said Kealy Pfau, SCCF\u2019s Coastal Watch Director, as we checked on the mangrove restoration site together.<\/p>\n
Clam Bayou has weathered its fair share of storms over the years \u2014 from Hurricane Charley to Ian, and most recently Helene and Milton. Hurricane Milton even opened a new cut connecting the bayou to the Gulf, further reshaping the coastal landscape.<\/p>\n
Despite the damage, these young mangroves are giving the shoreline new hope.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are going to interweave those roots that look like legs, and that really traps all that sediment from getting washed back out,\u201d Pfau explained.Since May, 1,500 mangroves have been planted at the site, with more to come. \u201cThis coming year we are going to put in a second generation of mangroves,\u201d Pfau added.<\/p>\n
Join the Effort<\/p>\n
You can help restore Southwest Florida\u2019s coastlines through SCCF\u2019s Adopt a Mangrove program. This fall, SCCF is hosting several adoption events at Bailey Homestead Preserve.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve already adopted out 700 mangroves,\u201d said Sky McDonald, SCCF\u2019s Community Conservation Coordinator.<\/p>\n
Adopting a mangrove is simple \u2014 they just need water, sunshine, and a little encouragement.<\/p>\n
\u201cTake care of it for three months, six months, a year, then bring it back here where we\u2019ll plant it at a restoration site,\u201d McDonald said. In time, these small seedlings will grow into the towering mangrove trees that protect Sanibel\u2019s shores and support local wildlife.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey will grow into the trees we see on our rookery islands, on the edges of Sanibel \u2014 everywhere we know and love,\u201d McDonald said.<\/p>\n
This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SANIBEL, Fla. \u2014 Six months ago, Fox 4 Meteorologist Andrew Shipley planted a few tiny mangroves at Clam…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":37688,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[25762,25759,25760,25763,3125,1802,11921,24443,25761,1521,202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":["post-37687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-adopt-a-mangrove","tag-bailey-homestead-preserve","tag-clam-bayou","tag-coastal-resilience","tag-hurricane-helene","tag-hurricane-milton","tag-sanibel-florida","tag-sanibel-captiva-conservation-foundation","tag-sccf","tag-southwest-florida","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37687","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37687"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37687\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}