"A reflection of both sky & skyline; a home for countless fish, mammals, & invertebrates; the people's source of a good time & a living; and what makes southeast Florida a special place."

Marsha Colbert, Former Aquatic Preserve Manager

Biscayne Bay Aquatic Preserve is featured in a documentary produced by the City of Miami.

• Think Green: Preserving Biscayne Bay Watch Video (512 Kbps)

Key Accomplishments

• Forming partnerships to assess and protect the aquatic resources within the preserve, including seagrasses and manatees. This provides an improved capacity for staff to better manage these resources.
• Participation in a nationally recognized youth challenge program to provide training; hands-on activities include measuring water quality, observing weather conditions, and sampling plankton. In addition to enhancing community awareness. Benefits of the program include participants reporting a greater interest in pursuing scientific careers.
• Active involvement in community-wide special events; outcomes range from challenging people to "name that animal and how it lives" to "getting them involved" in removing marine debris from the environment, including monofilament line which entangles sea birds and marine life.

• The bay is unusual because it was not formed by sea level rise at a river's mouth. It is a depression between two different types of limestone.
   
• Miami Beach, Virginia Key, Key Biscayne, and Key Largo are underlain by coral reef limestone formed by marine life.
   
• The mainland is composed of oolitic limestone, formed by the physical and chemical conditions within shallow water.
   
• The aquatic preserve shares the bay with Biscayne National Park, formerly Biscayne National Monument.
   
• The bay supports Johnson's seagrass, a threatened species under federal law (the first marine plant to be listed), found only in southeast Florida.
   
• Submerged habitats also include hardbottom areas of algae and sponges, soft sediments of sand or mud, and seagrasses.
   
• Florida manatees inhabit the bay and are more often observed in the winter time when they gather in warm water areas during cold fronts.