Audubon to honor Town’s Laakkonen with award
Keith Laakkonen, Environmental Sciences Coordinator at the Town of Fort Myers Beach, is the 2011 recipient of the Audubon Society’s prestigious Guy Bradley Award.
Laakkonen, who has been at his Town post since 2008, is being recognized for “his groundbreaking and innovative work in creating a plan and partnership to enable birds to nest on private beach areas,” according to Town Manager Terry Stewart.
The 1998 University of Florida graduate will be honored at an awards banquet at the Audubon of Florida’s annual state conference called the Audubon Assembly. It is being held in Lake Mary near Orlando this Friday (Oct 14).
“It’s humbling,” said Laakkonen. “It’s an individual award, but I believe it recognizes the efforts of a lot of people who have worked very hard with the property owners at the south end of Fort Myers Beach. I may be getting the award, but it’s because of the cooperation and partnership with the property owners, the Town and Aububon to find a way to deal with the conservation of these active bird colonies on the beach behind their properties.”
Laakkonen, who was born and raised in Fort Myers, has been monitoring birds at Little Estero Island Critical Wildlife Area and the beaches at the southern terminus of Estero Island for three years while employed at the Town. This process involves long hours of monitoring as well as the staking and posting of areas for the bird nesting season from April through August each year.
“However, snowy plovers can start nesting as early as February or March,” he said. “So come that time, I am out daily to monitor these families to see when they are setting up territories and building nests. There is a lot of daily monitoring involved.”
This year posed a more difficult time for the Town’s birdman when he actually broke his hand posting the Critical Wildlife Area.
“I had to grit through the rest of posting season with a broken hand that basically required posting with one hand,” said Laakkonen.
During his tenure, some nesting birds have branched off Little Estero Island and have camped south in front of Beach condominiums to require more posting. In 2009, Carlos Pointe property owners gave the Town of Fort Myers Beach staff permission to post nesting areas provided that they could resume beach raking at the end of the nesting season. The DEP, the agency that issues raking permits, advised this could be accomplished with a “field” permit.
“The significance of this award recognizes the cooperative relationships we have established at Carlos Pointe,” said Laakkonen. “These birds used to nest primarily in the Critical Wildlife Area but, due to the accretion and Beach raking, it has created the perfect habitat for these birds right in front of those condos.”
After graduating from UF, Laakkonen began his career managing coastal resources with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection and the Coastal Aquatic Preserve program. Through those assignments, he has worked in Crystal River, Charlotte Harbor and Rookery Bay.
“I’ve been lucky to be on Fort Myers Beach where I can use some of my experience in a very natural setting,” he said. “This is a very different sort of environment.”
Laakkonen has credited the Town manager, his supervisors and Town Council for their efforts in recognizing the importance of the areas and the birds.
“I think our Comprehensive Plan is great at recognizing how important this is,” he said. “Through the support of the Town manger and Town Council, I have proceeded to find a creative way to come up with this partnership.”
The environmental sciences coordinator also cited Eco-Tourism for helping out.
“We have a lot of birders who will come in during nesting season just to see these birds. I think that is important as well,” he said.
Brad Cornell, the Southwest Florida Policy Advocate for Audubon of Florida, nominated Laakkonen with a submitted list that included “persistence, creativity, courage and expert leadership” for protecting one of the most important beach bird nesting areas in the state.
“Keith has been zealous in organizing and leading a whole group of us volunteers to educate beach goers to tell them an area of beach is closed. As you can imagine, there have been a few eyebrows raised and a few tempers over why the staking has taken place over private beach,” said Cornell. “When people realize that it is to benefit nesting birds and that the area is one of the most important beach bird nesting areas in the state, they seem to understand better.”
The prestigious award is considered one of the highest honors bestowed by Audubon. In 2009, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission biologist Nancy Douglas was selected for the award.
“Nancy has worked hard for many, many years for the conservation of the Critical Wildlife Area. It is a very important area for migratory enlisted birds. Ever since I arrived here, the Critical Wildlife Area has really popped up as one of the real needs for stewardship for my position. I think it even draws more attention to the importance of our small island in the bigger scheme of conservation,” said Laakkonen.
Stewart applauded his environmental sciences coordinators efforts through an email to the local media.
“We are so proud of his accomplishment with the shore bird nesting program and extremely pleased that he is the recipient of this award,” said Stewart. “This is an individual award and justly deserved by Keith. At the same time, our wonderful Town of Fort Myers Beach can enjoy great satisfaction in having provided Keith both the opportunity and latitude to accomplish this groundbreaking work.”
The award is named after a wildlife warden and Monroe County Deputy hired by the Audubon Society in 1902 to protect South Florida’s rookeries and wading birds from hunters. Unfortunately, Guy Bradley was killed in the line of duty while attempting to protect birds from poachers in 1905.
The mission of Audubon of Florida and National Audubon Society is to conserve and restore natural ecosystems, while focusing on birds and other wildlife for the benefit of humanity and the earth’s biological diversity.