TIERRA VERDE, Fla. — An ebb-shoal named "Outback Key" that formed just off Fort De Soto's North Beach is close to connecting to the Pinellas County park in three areas.
- Ebb-shoal named "Outback Key" formed off Fort De Soto
- Outback Key close to connecting State Park in 3 areas
- Officials looking to create protection plan
"That is something that has been forming over the last 10 years now," said Paul Cozzie, Pinellas Dir. of Parks and Conservation. "It's getting larger and larger. Before, it was barely noticeable."
Cozzie said based on historic aerial photographs they've determined the ebb-shoal forms every 30-to-40 years and will either disappear or attach to Fort De Soto. Cozzie believes Outback Key will connect in less than 2 years.
"Actually, what is considered the north tip now was formed by a similar process," he said. "Sometime in the 1980's."
The water between Ft. De Soto and Outback Key has become so shallow in spots that people can walk to it even during high tide, which can be dangerous.
"It's really become quite an attraction for folks to be able to walk someplace where previously there was no land," said Cozzie.
"Those currents are ripping through a very narrow area... if they've got small children or aren't aware of what's going on, the water can move through there fast enough to pick someone up and carry them away."
Environmental activist and volunteer for the Florida Shorebird Alliance, Lorraine Margeson, said she's the one who named the ebb-shoal "Outback Key." Margeson said in 2015, she noticed that protected birds began nesting on the sand and realized it would need a name for advocacy.
“If it continued to grow, as was projected, advocacy would need to come into play," she said. “This island is one of the most important nesting shoals in the entire state. All five of our most highly protected species have actually fledged young in such a small location.”
Margeson said the nesting had gone well until this year, when people started "mobbing" Outback Key on weekends, bringing dogs, alcohol, and leaving behind trash.
“There are no rules at all at this point on Outback Key,” she said. “We need to have some kind of management, from all different directions because the usage, the human pressure.”
Cozzie agrees a management plan needs to be put in place but it's difficult because Outback Key is officially considered submerged land that is owned by the State.
"It's not that we want to posses that but we would like to be able to work with them to put a plan together," he said. "That will protect the safety of the public as-well-as protect the wildlife that's out there."
Margeson said she believes Outback Key will connect to Ft. De Soto before the end of the year.
“You don’t have to wait for it to officially, legally, attach," she said. "The problems of attachment and management are here now.”