environment Archive

The University of West Florida is known for its trails as well as its academics.

Much of the trails traverse through longleaf pine forests. The plant, which once spread over 90 million acres across America, is famously fire-resistant and relies on fires to clear out dead underbrush to make room for its seedlings.

Vernon Compton stands on the edge of Clear Creek Nature Preserve, where Longleaf Alliance, a conservation organization he belongs to, is currently working to create trails for public recreation.

He said it’s an exciting time for conservation in Northwest Florida.

Loxy, a red fox and longtime animal ambassador with Emerald Coast Wildlife Refuge, passed away earlier this year.

Right around the start of 2026, Loxy was diagnosed with bone cancer. During that time, Loxy stopped eating and playing.

The 2025 bear hunt, approved by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission after months of meetings and a comment period, has concluded. In total, 52 black bears were harvested.

Milton City Manager Ed Spears announced Oct. 29 that Locklin Lake’s dredging and shoreline restoration was complete, as he and residents stood on fresh sod as the sun set on the horizon, casting a glow over the lake.

The Florida Department of Environmental Protection is seeking community support for their Trail Town program and related efforts to pave the US-90 Trail Corridor that runs through Mil-ton—a designated “trail town.” Without secured funding, nearly two-thirds of the corridor remains unpaved in Santa Rosa County.

If you have ever enjoyed a peanut M&M, then you can likely thank Ryan Jenkins for growing that peanut in his fields in Jay. Recently, Jenkins received recognition as the 2023 Farm Press Peanut Efficiency Award winner for the lower Southeast.

Jenkins, whose family has been farming in north Santa Rosa County for generations, was named the award winner for using farming practices that manage resources such as water and seed more efficiently.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) has confirmed that a road-killed 4.5-year-old female white-tailed deer in Holmes County sampled during routine surveillance activities has tested positive for chronic wasting disease (CWD). It is the first known case of CWD in Florida, a contagious disease of the brain and central nervous system that is fatal to deer. The first case of CWD in North America was described in mule deer in Colorado in 1967. Florida is the most recent of 31 states to detect the disease, which also has been confirmed in four Canadian provinces, Finland, Norway, Sweden and South Korea.

On 640 acres off County Road 182 near Allentown, you’ll find the Jay Research Facility, which is a part of the UF/IFAS West Florida Research and Education Center.

UF/IFAS, which stands for the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, is a federal-state-county partnership dedicated to developing knowledge in agriculture, human and natural resources, and the life sciences, and enhancing the quality of human life by making that information accessible. The college has a dozen research facilities across the state.

The more than 25,000 Floridians with recreational crab traps will soon have to make some changes.

A new Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission regulation, which went into effect March 1, requires crab traps to have a rigid opening no larger than six-by-two inches.

The purpose of this change is to help reduce the bycatch of diamondback terrapins in crab traps.