Keep Sarasota Bay Healthy:
Seagrass and Mangroves Matter

Cortez village was founded in the 1880s, and has long been a bountiful fishing base for delicious seafood, especially mullet from Sarasota Bay and the Gulf of Mexico. Village old-timers grew up on “mullet and grits for breakfast, grits and mullet for lunch, and leftovers for dinner,” as Cortez fisherman ‘Blue’ Fulford used to tell it. Sarasota Bay’s seagrass meadows are a vital habitat for mullet, as well as many other fish species, manatees and sea turtles. Seagrass provides shelter from predators for shrimp, scallops and stone crabs, and serves as a protective nursery for young fish. One acre of seagrass can support up to 40,000 fish, and Sarasota Bay has more than 10,000 acres.  Seagrasses are the lungs of the bay; through photosynthesis, seagrass absorbs carbon dioxide and gives off oxygen, important for every living thing and for clear, healthy seawater.

 

In the late-19th century, more than half of Sarasota Bay was covered in seagrass. By 1950, only half of that remained, primarily due to poor water quality caused by the rapid population growth that increased polluting runoff into our Bay. Since the 1990s, local communities have been working to improve conditions in the Bay and take actions to improve seagrass habitats. Without seagrass, the sea life and the economies that depend upon healthy environments suffer. Many local environmental groups work to restore seagrass, but they can't do it alone--here's what you can do: