MARCH 2025

Breathe in the salt air on the miles of coastline in Canaveral National Seashore.

Canaveral National Seashore will continue festivities for the park’s 50^th Anniversary with a special event on March 15.

This year’s ACA Soundscape Field Station Artist in Residence Dani Amaro will discuss her work and share her sound-art installation created during the time she has spent living in the park and recording the sounds around her.

Her environmental storytelling combines using and creating tactile art with organic materials, such as sargassum from the sea, to explore new ways to reach broader audiences through art, music and sound. Amaro is a trained jazz musician and music teacher in Miami.

The day’s event will be held from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Doris Leeper House in Eldora and offers guests a chance to spend a few hours on the grounds of the home where artist and environmentalist Doris Leeper once lived. This public event is free with park admission.

In addition to Amaro’s artist talk and performance on March 15, the park will also host a Soundwalk on March 8 at 11 a.m. at the Apollo Beach Visitor Center, as well as an Open Viewing of Artist Sound Sculpture from March 17-30. Stop by the Apollo Beach Visitor Center for details.

Events like these are a good reminder that support from individuals, private foundations and educational institutions, as well as such entities as Atlantic Center for the Arts and Friends of Canaveral, allow Canaveral National Seashore to host guest artists who highlight the park’s beauty and uniqueness for the public to enjoy.

While there are many things going on in the world to distract and stress us, please use this time to come to your national park to unwind, breathe in the salt air, and listen to the pounding ocean and the chatty osprey.

It is here that you may stroll the same rustic driveway that Doris Leeper walked for many years. Dare yourself to think her thoughts about creative energy, the environment around you and how this precious landscape has a way of coaxing out the best attributes of humanity when it is in touch with the vibrant and dynamic surrounding backdrop of unspoiled nature.

Lisa D. Mickey

President, Friends of Canaveral

Lisa D. Mickey is Florida Master Naturalist/ Florida Land Steward

Atlantic Center for the Arts

SOUNDSCAPE ARTIST-IN-RESIDENCE

Dani Ferreira Amaro

The ACA Soundscape Field Station, a partnership between Atlantic Center for the Arts and Canaveral National Seashore, announces transdisciplinary sound artist, Dani Ferreira Amaro as its 2025 artist-in-residence. From February 24 – March 31, 2025, Dani Amaro will explore Canaveral National Seashore to create a site-specific, tactile sound sculpture made from Sargassum (seaweed) and materials representing the cultures of Florida, such as Sankofa ironwork. She states, “sargassum is known to filter out unwanted debris from our oceans as well as provide refuge for marine life such as shrimps and sea turtles. One is invited to draw parallels and contemplate the similar functions of preservation, protection, intimacy, and shelter that Sankofa ironwork provides to the many homes of historically displaced peoples.”

Amaro’s approach to environmental storytelling combines the process of sustainably creating textiles from organic materials to broaden her practice by exploring new ways audiences can tangibly experience music. She is a trained jazz musician and music teacher in Miami, Florida who shares her heritage across distance from the Global South to Florida.

During the residency, she will invite the public to engage with her creative process while living and working on-site in the national park.

Public Events at Canaveral National Seashore – Free with park admission:

March 8, 2025 at 11AM Soundwalk at Apollo Beach Visitor Center

March 15, 2025 at 11AM Artist Talk at the Doris Leeper House, Eldora

March 17–30, 2025: Open Viewing of Artist Sound Sculpture

For more information visit the Atlantic Center for the Arts website.

CONSERVATION CORNER

The pink fiber and plastic film were collected from the homes of community members (citizen scientists). The blue fragment is from a Canaveral National Seashore oyster reef at low tide. The filter grids used in this research project measure 3 mm x 3 mm.

Atmospheric Microplastics in the Indian River Lagoon

By Madison Serrate and Dr. Linda Walters

University of Central Florida

Department of Biology

Plastic pollution is a hot topic with microplastics (particles measuring < 5 mm long) being found everywhere from the deepest ocean trenches to the tops of our tallest mountains.

Publications by UCF biologists and chemists found that the Indian River Lagoon (IRL) is a microplastic hotspot, with about 1.5 microplastics per liter of lagoon water, while filter-feeding IRL oysters contain an average of 2.3 plastic particles. With all the buzz around this issue you may find yourself asking, should I be concerned?

Well, the prestigious journal Nature published an article in February 2025 documenting that researchers now have found microplastics in human brain tissue. Moreover, they estimate they can isolate approximately 10 grams of microplastics in a human brain. So, not only are microplastics found in the water and on mountain peaks, but there also are microplastics in you! And not just in your digestive tract.

How could these particles get there? Most likely in the air that we breathe. Microplastics (MP) are small enough that they can be transported in the air and then land in a distant location, called atmospheric deposition. Atmospheric deposition is the process that allows pollutants in our atmosphere to be deposited through wind, rain, snow, etc.

This means the air we breathe contains microscopic plastics that we are inhaling every day. While the IRL has previously been identified as a microplastics hotspot by analyzing lagoon water, the role that atmospheric deposition plays in MP abundance value is currently unknown.

VOLUNTEER VOICES

Walt Hangen

Walt Hangen has volunteered in many roles at Canaveral National Seashore (CANA). Here’s what he had to say about becoming a park volunteer:

Q: Tell us a little about your background.

A: I was born in Pennsylvania, raised there and on an island off the New Jersey coast. I earned a degree in biology and chemistry at Albright College in Redding, Pa., and went to work for the Center for Disease Control as an epidemiologist in Philadelphia. After that, I worked at the U.S. Public Health Service regional office in Chicago as a grant specialist, then as chief of management studies, and later, as a special assistant to the assistant secretary of health in Washington, D.C. After that, I spent 33 years in a tool and party rental business that I started in Maryland in 1974. I’ve lived in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Illinois, Maryland, Virginia, and in 2003, my wife Faythe and I moved to New Smyrna Beach and Hickory, North Carolina. We have three adult children, 12 grandchildren and one great-grandchild.

Q: How did you get involved as a volunteer in the park?

A: I met Willie Burns, an avid birder and volunteer at CANA, who suggested I would also enjoy the opportunity of volunteering in the park. After obtaining my boat captain's license, Chief of Interpretation Ranger Laura Henning asked me to operate the park’s tour boat, Tortuga del Sol, as a volunteer. I did that for two years, and later worked as a staff member.

Q: Did you do other things in the park?

A: For several seasons, I worked on staff as an interpretative ranger with a variety of assignments. I have also worked with the park’s “Tuesday Crew,” which is a longtime volunteer team that performs maintenance activities throughout the park. In addition, I’ve helped with turtle rescues, beach and island maintenance, bird studies, archaeology explorations, environmental education and mammal rescue. I’ve enjoyed being involved with LOTS of varied activities!

Q: So, how long have you volunteered in the park?

A: Since around 2004.

Q: Do you work or volunteer in other places?

A: I also currently work as a master naturalist and boat captain for the Marine Discovery Center here in New Smyrna Beach.

Q: Has there been a highlight for you as a park volunteer?

A: I've continued working as a volunteer with the Tuesday Crew throughout all the years I’ve been at the park and with various park regimes trying to support staff with projects that needed maintenance or completion. It's been a rewarding experience working with staff and other Volunteers In Park Service (VIPS) to assist in maintaining such a special natural place so others can continue to enjoy it.

Q: What do you enjoy most about volunteering in the park?

A: I enjoy the opportunity to expose others to the wonders that we experience daily as we learn to protect the environment for future generations.

ACTIVITIES AT THE SEASHORE

March 2025

APOLLO BEACH VISITOR CENTER HOURS

Open Daily * 9 am - 5 pm

Thursday, March 13 at 10 a.m. PLANT WALK -- ELDORA Join us for a walk to identify the plants of Canaveral National Seashore and find out how they have been utilized over the years. Each walk is led by an experienced volunteer and covers a different part of the park. Please bring water for hydration and wear shoes for trail walking. (Activity duration: 2 hours).

Meet at 9:45 a.m. at parking lot #7.

For a full list of activities offered this month, click on the buttons below.

APOLLO PROGRAMS

PLAYALINDA PROGRAMS

DID YOU KNOW?

Swallow-tailed Kites

Image courtesy of Cornell University

Swallow-tailed kites start arriving in Florida in late February and early March seeking opportunities for nesting habitat. The Swallow-tailed kite resides in South America, venturing north to Central and North America during the summer for the breeding season. Swallow-tailed kites are monogamous and mate pairing often occurs during the migration. They usually build a new nest each season but often is the same location. Males are territorial of these nest locations and defend them with local vocalizations. Despite this, many Swallow-tailed kite nests can be found near each other.

Learn more about this magnificent bird in Rick O'Connor's post on the UF/IFAS blog.

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