Give Back to Our Bay on #GivingTueday
     Here at CBA, it is our top priority to sustain the health of local waters through monitoring, education, restoration and research.
     
     We depend on folks like you - our community of water stewards - to donate time and money to help accomplish our mission. Your assistance - from recycling your fishing line to helping us purchase a new work vehicle - makes a difference to the future of our precious waterways.

     Choctawhatchee Basin Alliance is one hundred percent grant and donor funded with ninety-seven cents from every dollar going directly toward our programs. One-third of our expenditures go toward educational programs.
  
     We urge you to make a donation to CBA, in the spirit of Non-Profit Giving Day on November 29th, to keep our programs running for years to come. We welcome you to join our cause to restore and preserve Choctawhatchee Bay and the coastal dune lakes.

Photo Credit to Sean Murphy
Join the Alliance! Donate to CBA, Today! 
Become a steward of local waterways by supporting CBA's mission in the Choctawhatchee watershed.
All monetary donations to CBA are tax deductible to the fullest extent of the law.
Check out CBA's 2015 Stewardship Report!
Photo Credit to Sean Murphy
Photo Credit to Sean Murphy
World Fisheries Day
      In honor of World Fisheries Day, CBA would like to urge you to buy your seafood from local, sustainable vendors. Check out this website to get started buying local seafood. Harbor Docks Seafood Market

Did you know?
  • Eighty-five percent of commercially fished species spend important parts of their lives in estuaries like Choctawhatchee Bay.
  • "Thirty-one percent of global fish stocks were estimated as fished at a biologically unsustainable level and therefore over-fished." (Food and Agriculture Organization)
Shoreline Grasses Grow in Classes

     The past month has been very busy for the AmeriCorps team and CBA; we have already visited over 20 schools! This is the first wave of our program where we teach students about the importance of shoreline grasses in the brackish Choctawhatchee Bay ecosystem. Students learn how grasses filter pollution and stabilize the shoreline, while providing valuable habitat for creatures that live in the Bay. Of Course, no lesson would be complete without getting our hands dirty potting smooth cordgrass!

    When students are able to interact with their studies, they take home more than just vocabulary terms; children leave with experiences that last a lifetime.
      Bringing the Grasses in Classes program to schools can be expensive. With two counties, Okaloosa and Walton, we have over 2,000 students to provide materials for. It can cost upwards of $10,000 per school! This money goes directly to supplies needed to build plant nurseries, refractometers to test salinity, educational packets used in classrooms and much more!
How Does CBA Monitor the Bay?
  W ater Quality Parameters
   The Hydrolab is a piece of professional equipment used to monitor water quality. It is comprised of a hand-held computer and a probe with several delicate sensors. Water quality parameters include pH, salinity, specific conductivity, and dissolved oxygen content, just to name a few.
  Chlorophyll Filtering
    Water samples are collected in syringes from our CBA research boats. We push the water through filters that will be frozen and sent to the lab for Chlorophyll analysis along with the filtered sample water to be tested for nutrients.
Upcoming Events
November 15, 2016
Nation Wide

November 21, 2016
South Walton Center - Northwest Florida State College, Santa Rosa Beach, FL

November 29, 2016
Donate to Choctawhatchee Basin Alliance to keep our initiatives going!

Critter of the Month
Atlantic Stingray - Dasyatis sabina
  • Atlantic Stingrays, Dasyatis sabina, are a smaller species of ray with a wingspan of only two feet.
  • Dasyatis sabina feed on benthic invertebrates, small crustaceans, small fish, and polychaete worms.
  • They have rows of sensory cells called "Ampullae of Lorenzini" that detect weak electric fields generated by prey organisms.
  • For this reason, swimmers should perform the "Stingray Shuffle" by shuffling their feet through the sand to inform stingrays of their presence.
  • Stingray babies are called pups!
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