Miami Artist To Open Studio Featuring Biscayne Bay's Endangered Species

“Today, the biggest threat we face is a lack of connection to one another and to our natural world.” Xavier Cortada.

Xavier Cortada, the ecologically-minded Miami artist, who once organized mangrove plantings on Virginia Key as part of an art installation, will celebrate the opening of his art studio on Miami Beach at 7 p.m., Saturday, August 7 at ArtCenter South Florida, 924 Lincoln Rd, Studio 201, Miami Beach.

Featured works include the Endangered World: 80.15:W (Biscayne Bay’s longitude) series of drawings of 17 threatened and endangered animal species that find refuge within the federally protected waters of Biscayne National Park in Biscayne Bay.

Susan Gonshor, Chief Park Interpreter at Biscayne National Park will be a featured speaker at the art studio opening, which takes place during South Beach's Gallery Night walk.

Biscayne National Park’s 173,000 acres stretch out between Biscayne Bay and the Atlantic Ocean, punctuated by a string of small islands - semi-tropical “keys.”

The park’s boundaries stop just short of the state-designated Biscayne Bay Aquatic Preserve, which surrounds Virginia Key.

Ecologically, Virginia Key shares many of the same characteristics of the barrier islands currently found within Biscayne National Park. At the island’s center is the 700-acre state-designated Bill Sadowski Critical Wildlife Area (CWA), established to protect shorebirds, herons, and egrets that forage within the site, as well as sensitive and or endangered species such as the American kestral, osprey, bald eagle, and peregrine falcon. The CWA’s beach dune communities are essential sea-turtle nesting areas and its mangrove forests provides undisturbed spawning areas for many species of fish and invertebrates, including several threatened and endangered species.

Biscayne National Park could be expanded to include Virginia Key and the southern portion of the Biscayne Bay Aquatic Preserve, which is home to several federally listed endangered turtle species, including the green, hawksbill, leatherback, Atlantic ridley, and loggerhead and the federally listed American crocodile.

Biscayne Bay’s seagrass ecosystem provides habitat for at least 512 species of fish and more than 800 species of invertebrates, including more than 150 species of shrimp, crabs, and lobsters. (All this diversity is due in large part to the Bay’s overlap of the Atlantic and the Caribbean marine provinces.)

If you go: Xavier Cortada Studio, ArtCenter South Florida, 924 Lincoln Rd., Studio 201, Miami Beach.

Resources: www.cortada.com
http://www.nps.gov/bisc/parknews/xavier-cortada-to-mount-major-installation.htm

Photos: Xavier Cortada's "Reclamation Project" on Virginia Key; mangrove seedlings growing in the restored wetlands at Historic Virginia Key Beach Park.

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On Facebook: Friends of Virginia Key