Dear Concerned Citizens, 14 July, 2009

This letter is being sent to you to enlist your help and support in keeping the Venom Response Team from Miami Dade Fire Rescue alive, and able to provide community services and assist you in the event of an emergency.

As you are probably aware, MDFR’s Venom Response Team maintains the largest, most comprehensive, anti-venom bank in the United States. We are currently available for emergency responses on a 24/7 basis and can deploy and deliver 50 different anti-venom quickly throughout the State of Florida and beyond. Additionally, we respond to over 400 Africanized Bee calls a year (mitigating the situation if possible), as well as animal rescue calls in our county. We also provide community outreach, Envenomation Management and Africanized Bee Response Training for other agencies and “Dangerous Critters” education for many schools, public gatherings and private groups.

Budget cuts in our department are threatening our unit and our response capabilities. We could easily be cut back to skeleton staffing, which will eliminate many services and significantly slow our response times. We are doing everything we can to prevent these cuts but we need YOUR help!

Please take a moment to e-mail or call the Mayor’s Office and Miami Dade County Commissioners listed below and let them know how our program is important to you, your company, clients, or group. Our response and education area is not limited to Dade County so your voices need to be heard to let the Commissioners know that you do care and don’t want Venom Response to be dismantled. Their meeting to decide on cuts is upcoming July 21, 2009, please make your voices heard before that date.

Our services are important to many, in and out of the Dade County area, and we want to continue to be here for you. Today our unit’s life is in your hands. Please feel free to forward this to any of your contacts. The more voices they hear the better! Thank you in advance for your support and assistance.

Best Regards,

Charles

MDFR Venom Response Team – 786-331-4444 mdfrantivenom@miamidade.gov

Mayor Carlos Alvarez - (305) 375-5071 mayor@miamidade.gov

To find out who your Comissioner is please visit the Miami-Dade website

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A small number of fishermen are disgruntled over the fact that the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission are making such sweeping changes.

“The rules are getting to a point where the man who’s trying to make a living at this can’t pay for no more,” said Douglas Traywick, 51, a lifelong fisherman from Orange County.

Given Floridas growth in population when a female turtle finally nests down she's lucky to. With surviving crossing roads, avoiding construction areas, escaping foxes, crows and other species, the turtle has more than earned her chance to nest. Turtles cannot survive the mass fishing that occurs with fish.

The commission set temporary limits on commercial harvests last year.

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The new rules allow turtles to be farm-raised and sold. So what's the problem? You have to work a bit harder but you still can still raise them. sell them, eat them.

A move in the right direction, I applaud them for such actions. It was done with careful decision making not with carelessness and fear.

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