Pictured: Mote employees transferring snooks from a large portable tub into buckets for tagging. Photo by Alex Alfaro.

The salt marshes and waterways of the Robinson Preserve Expansion experienced a great leap toward conservation yesterday with the release of 500 juvenile snooks. The release was part of a wider program to release 21,000 snooks across Southwest Florida, including 1,500 specially-tagged fish.

As families watched from the shoreline, scientists from Mote Marine Laboratory moved the snooks into buckets, each one carrying a passive integrated transponder—a tag similar to microchips used in household pets. From there, the fish were released into the water, where researchers will eventually be able to track where the snooks travel and, more importantly, whether they survive.

Dr. Ryan Schloesser, manager of Mote’s Fisheries Ecology & Enhancement Program, explains, “We know exactly which fish was at our antenna, when it was there, how long it stayed and most importantly, that that fish is still alive.” He emphasized that the project’s goal is to learn which habitats are best for snooks, so they can be recreated for conservation purposes. “Today is really exciting because not only do we get all this amazing data on the habitat, but we get to put back some of the snook that we lost from the system,” Schloesser says.

This research is incredibly important to scientists at the moment, since recent climate patterns have led to alarmingly high snook mortality rates. Hurricanes and cold weather have taken a toll on local snook populations. This was a very cold winter—and snook are a tropical species,” Schloesser says. “They're not very tolerant of cold conditions like a lot of other more temperate species.”

Will Robinson, the representative for the Robinson Preserve Expansion, explained that snook conservation efforts are incredibly important to the community. “It affects more than just our ecology—it's so important to keep our environment crystal clear to make sure that we keep the jobs that rely on snooks and the quality of life high in our area.”

As the buckets emptied, the moment represented a chance to watch conservation in action—one snook at a time.

Pictured: Mote employees transferring snooks from a large portable tub into buckets for tagging. Photo by Alex Alfaro.