Bizarre species sightings leave Floridians perplexed

In the last few months, fish and bird species have been popping up in places they're not normally found. These transients aren't arriving in huge numbers, just an oddity here and there -- an Arctic bird off St. Augustine Beach, an armored catfish normally in South America found in the Indian River Lagoon, spiny dogfish normally farther north found in Ponce de Leon Inlet.

"Something's going on in the North Atlantic," said Chuck Hunter, an Atlanta-based refuge biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

But there isn't one explanation to account for the unusual sightings, bird and fish experts say. Some attribute them to the hurricanes while others point the finger at a cold-water phenomenon that started in 2003.

For the last few weeks at the Flagler Beach Pier, small hake fish have been jumping onto people's hooks. Identified as southern hake, the coldwater fish are common in Floridian estuaries, although not usually close to the shoreline, said Ed Matheson of the state's Fish and Wildlife Research Institute in St. Petersburg.

Bill Allgire, who works at Ocean Pier Bait & Tackle, says the fish, about 3 inches long, have been coming in mostly after dark. Some days, he'll see one small school of them; other days, they can be seen throughout the full length of the pier, he said.

"Nobody really wants them," he said. "They're just there."

Rich Paperno, research administrator with the Fish and Wildlife Institute, says it's still too early to tell how the hurricanes impacted wildlife.

"We've seen a lot of unusual things after the hurricanes, where the fresh water that was running off brought a lot of species that were running into the lagoons," Paperno said from the Indian River field laboratory.

Soon after last year's hurricanes, Paperno said, armored catfish normally found in South America were found in the Indian River lagoon.

Some have caught spiny dogfish -- a type of shark that's usually found north of Cape Cod in the winter -- swimming in Ponce Inlet and the Jacksonville area, said Eric Sander, who does recreational fishing surveys for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

Of Sander's 16 years of shark fishing, he said he has never caught a single spiny dogfish. Sander connects their arrival with cold-water temperatures reaching the low 50s. The chilly waters can be prompted by upwellings, a situation when persistent winds out of the south and southeast blow warm surface water out to sea.

But whatever caused these out-of-towners to visit, it's left some fishermen scratching their heads.

As for the one Arctic bird found in St. Augustine and the others reported in South Carolina, researchers are dumbfounded.

In December, a puffin was found off St. Augustine Beach and stayed alive for only 24 hours at a local wildlife rescue and rehabilitation center. It was the second puffin ever to be reported in Florida, said Andy Kratter, collections manager at the Florida Museum of Natural History.

"He was very thin, emaciated really," said Karen Lynch, president of Noah's Ark Wildlife Rescue and Rehabilitation in St. Augustine.

Kratter, who examined the remains of the puffin, said neither the hurricanes nor the cold water had anything to do with the puffin's unusual pilgrimage.

"Probably it just kept going, instead of stopping where it should have," Kratter said. "It went too far south. It could have been a storm. Its orientation was screwed up for some reason."

And while experts agree rare bird sightings are not uncommon in Florida, Kratter said, "it's still pretty much a mystery why birds get off tracking," although food or weather can be common factors.

Sometimes, butterfly fish, who live in Florida, find their way to New Jersey estuaries, Matheson said.

"These are babies that get caught in the Gulf Stream and go up there," Matheson said.

He speculated that the southern hake spotted at the Flagler Beach Pier were probably the scattered young also. When a coldwater upwelling occurs, the water brings in cooler water fish, Matheson said.

And if last summer's hurricanes have anything to do with the bizarre sightings, researchers say it'll take time to figure that out.

"Many of the effects are going to be long-term effects," Paperno said. "We won't (understand) this for several years down the road."