FDOU Project 26A Part 5 Task 1 - Our Florida Reefs (OFR) Survey Outreach Efforts

This report contains summaries of the OFR survey outreach activities completed in Miami-

Dade, Broward, Palm Beach, and Martin counties between October 1st, 2014 and February

2nd, 2015.

A total of seven presentations were given in Broward, Palm Beach, and Martin Counties.

These presentations were for groups such as dive clubs, underwater photography clubs, fishing clubs, and environmental professionals clubs. Unfortunately, due to scheduling conflicts no survey presentations have been given in Miami-Dade County to-date. Summaries of these outreach presentations include the name of the club, location of the presentation, number of people reached, demographics, questions and responses during the presentations, and any flyers, emails, and/or pictures associated with each presentation. Table 1 displays these presentations indicating the club name, type of club, type of event, date of presentation, event location, and county.

A total of 25 locations were visited to hand out survey postcards. These included three dive shops in Miami-Dade County, six dive shops in Broward County, ten dive shops, one surf shop, and one fishing store in Palm Beach County, and one dive shop and two marinas in Martin County. Table 2 shows survey outreach locations visited, their address, and the date visited.

Survey outreach emails were sent to over 45 different groups targeting thousands of people.

The largest was FWC at 15,000. Efforts were also made to email all registered fishing license holders in south Florida totaling several hundred thousand emails, but no organization (FWC, NSU, FDEP) could send the email due to information privacy rules. Social media included Facebook and Twitter account postings on various reef related group pages such as Florida’s Coral Program, Protect Our Reefs, and Divers Direct. Articles were also posted on various forums such as Scuba Board and Florida Sportsman.

Working with OFR and DEP staff, Joe Donzelli, NSU’s Associate Director of the Office of Public Affairs, wrote a press release to highlight the OFR survey and its importance in the effort to protect Florida’s reefs. Various media groups covered the story including The Sun Sentinel, The Fishing Wire, and Nova Southeastern University’s Shark Bytes.

The outreach had a substantial effect on the number of survey respondents. The highest peaks in survey participation occurred in 2014 on October 16th, 22nd, and 23rd with 61, 45, and 64 survey registrations created those days respectively. The second largest spike on October 16th, 2014 may be due to the social media posts created and shared that day. An example of some of these posts can be viewed in Figure 13. Facebook post by Protect Our Reefs promoting the OFR survey. and Figure 14. Facebook post by Florida's Coral Program advertising the OFR survey. It is important to note that October 16th, 2014, that date this post was created and shared by sixteen others, had a large spike in survey responses. The FWC email to over 15,000 people on October 22nd, 2014 accounted for the third largest spike in survey participation and the Sun Sentinel media coverage on October 23rd, 2014 accounted for the largest. Because the Sun Sentinel article and the FWC email occurred on consecutive days, it is difficult to determine which outreach effort actually produced more participation.