Spring Arrives with Memories of an Unsolved Mystery (FL)

by Peg Rooney Hall, Friends of Lower Suwannee and Cedar Keys NWRs at friends@friendsofrefuges.org

For many people, signs of spring often include migrating wildlife, warmer temperatures, and sprouting of blossoms and new greenery across the landscape. But what if the coming of spring marked the anniversary of an unsolved wildlife mystery at a place you love? Sounds more like a subject for Halloween, but on Florida’s Seahorse Key, one of the 13 islands making up the Cedar Keys National Wildlife Refuge, the coming of spring has been an annual reminder of a strange occurrence there. 

Seahorse Key was a major rookery with up to 20,000 colonial birds until it was abandoned, overnight, during nesting season in April 2015. The mysterious abandonment captured international media attention and has never been definitively explained. Luckily, many of the birds have returned in subsequent years to nest on the smaller, neighboring Snake Key. The details of this mystery make good reading. Click here for one account or here for another. Intrigued? Click here for the Friends website with maps, guides, and details about the open houses that the refuge will host on Seahorse Key in July and October. Meanwhile, enjoy this photo (below), by Friends member Ann Kamzelski, showing part of the beach at Seahorse Key.