BRADENTON BEACH – Two educational “Wildlife of Anna Maria Island” signs will soon be placed in John Chappie Park.
The park, 1400 Gulf Drive N., is across the street from the Bermuda Bay Club condominium complex. The identical 60″ x 24″ angle-mounted, high-pressure laminate signs will be placed at two locations along the sand trails in the natural surroundings of the city-owned park located between Gulf Drive South and the Gulf of Mexico. The signs will not be placed on the beach directly west of the park.
The Bradenton Beach Scenic WAVES Partnership Committee is spearheading the sign project. On Sept. 19, Scenic WAVES Vice-Chair Ingrid McClellan presented the mayor and city commission with an invoice for the completed design work and the cost estimate for the sign manufacturing. She also asked the commission to choose the color of the signposts. The commission opted for green posts.
The colorful and informative signs will include images of the wildlife found on Anna Maria Island, including manatees, bottlenose dolphins, cownose rays, pelicans, loggerhead sea turtles, green turtles, gopher tortoises, ospreys, royal terns and several other shorebirds, fiddler crabs, Atlantic bay scallops and more.
The signs will include the following educational messages:
• Leave only footprints;
• Fill in holes;
• Obey posted closures;
• Lights out May-October (sea turtle nesting season);
• Give birds space;
• Do not feed wildlife;
• Protect dune vegetation; and
• Be seagrass safe.
The sign design cost $3,503, with the city paying $1,003 of that using funds from the John Chappie Park fund. The cost to manufacture and ship the two signs and the mounting posts is $3,007. A mini-grant from the Tampa Bay Estuary Program will cover $2,500 of the manufacturing costs and the remaining $507 will be donated personally by McClellan and Scenic WAVES committee member Cathy King.
As an additional educational component to the sign installations, the non-profit Keep Manatee Beautiful organization will donate 68 thumb drives to teachers, schools and community centers in Manatee County. The thumb drives will contain informational materials provided by the Tampa Bay Estuary Program, the Anna Maria Island Turtle Watch and Shorebird Monitoring organization and the Anna Maria Island Chamber of Commerce. The thumb drives will be accompanied by poster-sized versions of the wildlife signs.
While addressing the commission, McClellan noted the long-anticipated sign project was initiated in 2016. She expects the signs to be installed in December.
Mayor John Chappie, the park’s namesake, praised McClellan’s presentation and expressed his appreciation for all the work she and the committee put into the project.
