Air Show Camera Crew May Have Damaged Sea Oat Sanctuary

Two years ago, Fort Lauderdale used a $5,000 dune grant from Broward County to plant 6,500 sea oats along a five-block section of State Road A1A in front of Hugh Taylor Birch State Park. The weekend of May 8-9, this protected area was trampled by several TV cameramen and reporters covering the Fort Lauderdale Air Show.

Halmos College of Arts and Sciences environmental faculty member J. Matthew Hoch, Ph.D. was interviewed by the South Florida Sun-Sentinel about the potential damage to the sea oats.

“Even if the stems are not damaged, you can still damage the root network,” he said. “I think a lot of people do ignorantly walk on them and think they are not going to do any harm. Maybe the [camera crews] thought that getting a shot from a certain angle outweighed protecting the sea oats.”

An onlooker took pictures all day on Saturday of camera crews standing on the roped-off sand dunes potentially damaging the protected plants. Sea oats are protected under regulations of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP). Their seeds cannot be collected without a permit and the plants cannot be cut back or removed. It was unknown if the air show incident damaged the sea oats. If it did, the damage might not be visible.

A Fort Lauderdale official said the city plans to send an expert out to check on whether the sea oats were damaged. Hoch stated that, “New sea oats can be planted but it takes them about two years to get back to where they can do what they need to do with shoreline protection.”