A married couple based in Florida Keys have been sentenced to prison for lobster poaching and will have to pay 1.1 million USD to restore the marine sanctuary in which they carried out their illegal activities.

The husband was sentenced to 30 months in prison since he was he was deemed to be the ringleader while his wife got away with 7 months in prison and 7 months of house arrest. They will also forfeit three vessels and three vehicles. In a parallel civil action, the couple was ordered to pay $1.1 million toward the restoration of coral and sea grasses in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary.

The couple was indicted last year on a conspiracy charge together with four other lobster-poachers. The six were arrested on the first day of the lobster season after federal agents caught them using hut-like ”casitas” to illegally harvest spiny lobsters from the sanctuary.

In the government’s probe, dubbed Operation Freezer Burn, agents found that the poaching – which had been carried out for two days – had resulted in 1,187 spiny lobsters being caught and stored in freezers at the couple’s home. According to the investigation, the retail market value for such a catch is $21,662 USD.

The couple and three others pleaded guilty, while one defendant was convicted at trial. The couple is expected to raise the money by selling their Cudjoe Key home and another property on Little Torch Key.

“For the Florida Keys’ reefs, overall, the live coral cover has diminished by 50 to 80 percent in the past 10 years,” says Margaret Miller, a coral reef researcher at the National marine Fisheries Service. According to Miller, the destruction is the result of several contributing factors, such as pollution, climate change, over-fishing, and coastal developments.

“Corals are very susceptible to warming temperatures, because their lethal temperature [temperature at which they die] and their happy, normal temperature are very close, only separated by a couple of degrees,” Miller explains.

The reef building corals are not the only creatures in trouble in Florida; the situation looks dire for many reef associated species as well.

University of Miami marine professor Jerry Ault has studied marine life in the region for more than a decade.
“The research has discovered that about 70 percent of all the snapper and grouper in the Florida keys reef system are at population levels below those considered to be sustainable,” he said. “Everybody loves Florida because of the marine environment. Folks come here to fish and to dive and to take advantage of it, but we are loving it to death.”

300,000 pounds of rock has been stolen from the bottom of the ocean near Alligator Light and Islamorada off the coast of Florida.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office wish to hear from anyone who may have seen a boat harvesting the material from the site. If you have any information about this case, please contact FWC, the

Sheriff’s Office or call the Crime Stoppers of the Florida Keys at (800) 346-TIPS. You can also leave an anonymous tip at https://www.tipsubmit.com/.

The stolen rocks belong to Neal Novak, 51, a Miami aquarist who leases the quarter-acre site inshore of Alligator Reef from the federal government to cultivate live rock for the aquarium trade. Unfortunately, Novak hasn’t visited his farm in a year so it is hard to know when the theft took place.

Live rock consists of dead coral rock or quarried rock colonized by a profusion of marine species. Anything from tiny bacteria to large sponges can find a home in and on this type of “living” rock, and rocks covered in colourful coralline algae are especially coveted. Saltwater aquarists use live rock to make their aquariums look more beautiful, make the ecosystem more balanced, and help keep the water quality up in the tank. Live rocks are often colonized by scavenging species that will take care of any left-over food in the aquarium before it gets a chance to foul the water. According to Novak, the wholesale price for quality live rock in Florida is about $3 per pound.

Since the harvest of live rock from the wild can hurt marine environments, Florida banned it in the 1990s and state and federal governments decided to lease barren sea-bottom sites to people interested in aqua-culturing live rock for the aquarium trade.

Novak created his live rock farm by purchasing rock from quarries in south Miami-Dade County and ferrying them to his farm where the rocks have been resting in roughly 20 feet (6 metre) of water until someone took them. The rock pile, which was designated by GPS coordinates, has most likely not been moved by natural forces, because no hurricanes have been reported from the area since 2005 and a second stone pile with immature live rock was left largely intact.

With a wholesale price of $3 per pound, 300,000 pounds of rock can naturally give a tidy little profit for unscrupulous boulder thieves.

“They stole my livelihood,” Novak said. “This is devastating to my whole family. It cost me almost $150,000 to put the rock down and start the business. I spent my life savings to make this work. We could be looking at bankruptcy.”

Last Friday, 53 year old Florida Keys resident Greg LeNoir saved his dog Jake from being devoured by a shark by jumping into the water and punching the predator.

The incident happened when LeNoir and Jake visited the Worldwide Sportsman’s Bayside Marina pier in Islamorada and Jake jumped into the water for his daily swim. According to LeNoir, Jake is a fast and fearless swimmer who loves to retrieve soaked coconuts and jellyfish. But this day, the playful swimming session took a turn for the worse when a five-foot (1.5 m) long shark showed up and chomped its teeth into the 14-pound (6.3 kg) rat terrier.

As LeNoir watched his dog suddenly disappear under the surface, he didn’t hesitate to come to his rescue. ”I clenched my fists and dove straight in with all my strength, like a battering ram,” says LeNoir. ”I hit the back of the shark’s neck. It was like hitting concrete.”

While being pounded by LeNoir, the shark decided to let go of Jake, who frantically swam back to the shore, leaving a red trail of blood behind him in the water. Jake was rushed to the VCA Upper Keys Animal Hospital in Islamorada, where his wounds were attended by veterinarian Suzanne Sigel and emergency on-call assistant Callie Cottrell. The sharp teeth of the shark had punctured Jake’s skin and some muscle, and skin was hanging like ribbons from his right side and front left leg, but he wasn’t in critical condition.

”He looks great and is recuperating well,” Sigel said on Monday. ”I was worried he may have inhaled salt water when he was pulled under, but there’s no evidence of infection or pneumonia.”

The hungry shark has not been identified, but LeNoir believes it to be a bull shark or lemon shark. Sharks are not uncommon in these waters, partly because the Islamorada Fish Company has an open saltwater pool which attracts large tarpon – a yummy treat for many species of shark.