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Seagrass is vital to maintaining healthy aquatic ecosystems, stabilizing shorelines and providing food and shelter for a variety of wildlife, including scallops, manatees and sea turtles.  

Sarasota County Seagrass Monitoring 

Sarasota County's Seagrass Monitoring Program began in 2006 and has played an important role in assessing the state of the county's seagrass habitat and overall health of the bays. Monitoring data helps to characterize the density, complexity, and stability of seagrass meadows. This data is collected in each bay in Sarasota (160 total sites) and is compared to SWFWMD's seagrass acreage maps. Together, these pieces paint a picture of how stormwater quality affects bay health.

For seagrass reports, please visit the Seagrass Report page on the Sarasota County Water Atlas.

Data from Sarasota County Seagrass Monitoring can be found here.

Citizen Seagrass Survey (Eyes on Seagrass)

The Eyes on Seagrass Program is a bi-annual citizen science event in partnership with Florida Sea Grant, Sarasota Bay Estuary Program, Mote Marine Laboratory, and Sarasota and Manatee counties to measure macroalgae and seagrass coverage. The program started in 2019 in Charlotte Harbor and was expanded to cover Sarasota Bay in 2021. During a sampling window in April and July, participants travel to various locations throughout the bays of Sarasota County to perform seagrass and macroalgae surveys. Results are then integrated into the Sarasota Bay Ecosystem Health Report Card.

For more information about the program and how to participate, visit https://sarasotabay.org/eos/

From 2015-2022, the volunteer seagrass survey was an annual citizen-science event where volunteers were provided gear and procedures to collect data about the health of seagrass beds in Sarasota County during a 2-week window. This survey was replaced entirely by the Eyes on Seagrass program in 2023.