Tarpon secrets revealed
PHOTO PROVIDED
Dr. Aaron Adams steers a boat while sampling baby tarpon Saturday on Lemon Lake while researcher JoEllen King wades up to her armpits in stinky, low-oxygenated water. The public was invited to watch tarpon research funded by the Bonefish and Tarpon Trust at Wildflower Preserve.
ENGLEWOOD — Wildflower Preserve has become a hub of research activity in the two years since the golf course gone wild was purchased by Lemon Bay Conservancy and transformed by volunteers into a community park.
Part of the excitement was the discovery that the preserve’s wetlands are home to juvenile tarpon, serving as a nursery for one of this area’s biggest economic drivers — the tarpon fishery.