Dolphin Tale Sweeps Awards Ceremony!

By Krista Rosado, from ClearwaterPatch.

“Dolphin Tale swept 16 categories at the Crystal Reel awards on Saturday held in Orlando’s Florida Hotel Nov. 9 and 10. 

The Crystal Reel Awards are held annually to honor and highlight outstanding achievements in motion picture, television, audio recording and digital media productions created in Florida over the past year. The Official Judges of the CRA are Emmy, Grammy, and/or Oscar recipients from across the country with no affiliation to the host organization, Florida Motion Picture and Television Association (FMPTA).

Highlighting the success of the Florida Tax Credit Program and the productions it has brought to Florida were nominees in two key categories:  For Best TV Series, nominees “Burn Notice” and “The Glades” were represented. For Best Feature, the nominees were Dolphin Tale and Renee. 

Dolphin Tale was represented on the Red Carpet by cast members Harry Connick, Jr., Nathan Gamble, Cozi Zuehlsdorff and Austin Highsmith. Additionally, Dolphin Tale producers Broderick Johnson and Richard Ingber of Alcon Entertainment and co-producer David Yates of Clearwater Marine Aquarium walked the red carpet. 

Dolphin Tale walked away the big winner of the evening, winning in the following categories:

• Best Feature: Robert Engelman, Steven Wegner, David Yates, Yolanda Cochran, Andrew Kosove, Broderick Johnson, Richard Ingber
• Best Adolescent Actor, Feature Film: Nathan Gamble
• Best Adolescent Actress, Feature Film: Cozi Zuehlsdorff
• Best Supporting Actress, Feature Film: Austin Highsmith
• Best Actor, Feature Film: Harry Connick, Jr.
• Best Editing: Harvey Rosenstock
• Best Art Direction/Set Design, Feature Film: Michael Corenblith
• Best Special Effects (Mechanical): Howard Berger
• Best Make-Up, Feature Film: Erin Brasfield-Koplow
• Best Hair: Jane Hassinger
• Best Costumes: Hope Hanafin
• Best Original Soundtrack: Mark Isham
• Best Original Score: Mark Isham
• Best Script (Produced), Feature Film: Karen Janszen & Noam Dromi
• Best Director, Feature Film: Charles Martin Smith
• Best Trailer: Robert Engelman, Steven Wegner, David Yates, Yolanda Cochran, Andrew Kosove, Broderick Johnson”

Read Article from the ClearwaterPatch.

River otters are often times mistaken for sea otters, but why? River otters do live in and around both fresh and salt water, however there are easy ways to identify the two species apart. First, river otters are commonly seen moving in and out of the water and are able to easily move around on land, versus sea otters that spend almost their entire life in water and are clumsy on land. Second, when in the water river otters commonly swim belly down, versus sea otters who swim belly up. Third, river otters are much smaller than their cousin the sea otter. Lastly, the paws of river otters and sea otters are webbed but the paws of a river otter are more circular shaped to aid in land locomotion versus seas otters that have webbing all the way to the toes to aid in water locomotion.

Courtney, thank you so much for this beautiful drawing! You did an awesome job!

From Tampa Bay Times, by Craig Pittman.

ST. PETERSBURG —- Tropical Storm Debby tore up Florida’s gulf beaches right in the middle of the nesting season for loggerhead sea turtles.

Yet sea turtle nesting came close to a record high this year, according to biologists with the state’s Fish and Wildlife Research Institute in St. Petersburg. They’re hopeful this is a sign of continued improvement for the loggerhead, listed as a threatened species — although they acknowledge that counting nests is not the same as counting turtle hatchlings.

Along the 250 miles of beaches checked this year, volunteers counted 58,172 loggerhead nests, one of the highest counts since monitoring began in 1989.

The all-time record of 59,918 nests was set in 1998, but the count hit a low of 28,074 in 2007.

“After a steep decline in Florida loggerhead nesting between 1998 and 2007, nesting has risen over the past five years,” said Blair Witherington, a scientist with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. “We’re pleased to see this increase, but we recognize that loggerheads, and other sea turtle species, still face many challenges.”

However, Witherington noted, the number of nests does not necessarily correlate with the number of turtle eggs that hatched. He said biologists are still working on their estimates of how many hatchlings climbed out of the sand and trundled toward the ocean.

Florida is crucial to the survival of loggerheads. Ninety percent of all loggerhead nesting in the United States occurs in Florida.

From May until September, thousands of female sea turtles — loggerheads and other species — crawl up on Florida beaches, dig a hole and drop in a clutch of eggs, then cover it back up and swim away. The turtles that lay the eggs are returning to the beaches where they themselves hatched some 30 years before.

Loggerhead nesting had been surging this year when Tropical Storm Debby hit in June, destroying scores of nests.

“Obviously there’s a lot of devastation,” David Yates of the Clearwater Marine Aquarium, which coordinates sea turtle nesting surveys on most of Pinellas’ beaches, said at the time. “We were having the best year in 15 years, and now we’ve had a substantial washing away.”

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