Cruisin' Central - Mississippi Gulf Coast Updates - September 29, 2010

Susan LaBrecque reports on the Mississippi Gulf Coast from Centennial Plaza in Gulfport, which will soon be transformed into Cruisin' Central for the 14th Annual Cruisin' the Coast. October 3rd through the 10th, thousands of classic and hot rod cars from across the country will cruise to the Coast for a weeklong car show and an unbelievable line-up of events. Find it all at www.visitmscoast.org. Wish you were here!


For more information about the MS Gulf Coast go to:
http://visitmscoast.xanga.com/
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www.visitmscoast.org

Mississippi Gulf Coast Updates - September 22, 2010

Susan LaBrecque reports on the Mississippi Gulf Coast from the Shed Barbeque and Blues Joint in Ocean Springs. The Shed has a very unique atmosphere, some of the best barbeque in the country and great blues music. This Saturday, September 25, the Shed will present the 7th Ever ShedHed Blues Festival with some amazing acts. Also this weekend is the 28th Annual Chefs of the Coast - all weekend long! Find it all at www.visitmscoast.org. Wish you were here!





For more interesting stories and information about the MS Gulf Coast go to:
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MS Gulf Coast Updates - September 13, 2010

Susan LaBrecque reports on the Mississippi Gulf Coast from the Biloxi Schooners. Created by the Maritime and Seafood Industry Museum, these two beautiful boats are exact replicas of the oyster schooners that sailed our Coast from the late 1800s to the early 1900s. The "Mike Sekul" and "Glenn L. Swetman" are available for charters, weddings, dockside parties and other events. Discover more historic adventures on the Mississippi Gulf Coast at www.visitmscoast.org. Wish you were here!

For another MS Gulf Coast Update go to:
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It's good to be king: Biloxi Seafood Fest set for this weekend

There is no shortage of discussions right now regarding the safety of the Gulf Coast's seafood due to the summer's oil spill, but the organizers of this weekend's Biloxi Seafood Festival are confident that not only is the seafood good to eat, it's more than worthy of its own coastal event. "We really pride ourselves on letting people know that Biloxi is open for business, and seafood is king here," said Rachael Seymour, director of the Biloxi Chamber of Commerce. For the 29th year, the festival will try to drive those ideas home to tens of thousands of visitors Saturday and Sunday with a variety of draws that include live music, a gumbo cook-off, children's contests and events and $20,000 in door prizes drawn every hour throughout the event's two days. The festival is the primary fundraiser for the Biloxi Chamber of Commerce's program of work, and organizers hope it rebounds after last year's event, which was basically a rainout. "We have education programs, we do business grants, scholarships, and we have a junior leadership program," Seymour said. "The money does fund the chamber's entire program for the year, which, in turn, gets reinvested in the community." In 2009, that reinvestment included $15,000 in grants and $20,000 in scholarships, which included investments from the Chamber's business partners, she said. A majority of this year's festival was funded by a $95,000 grant the chamber received from the Harrison County Tourism Bureau, which was part of $3 million given to Gulf Coast tourism groups by BP PLC in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon disaster. "The importance of the seafood industry and the heritage of that industry in Biloxi is incredible," Seymour said. "It's made Biloxi what it is, and we don't want to forget that cultural part of our heritage." For the Biloxi Seafood Festival's complete entertainment schedule, visit www.biloxi.org. For more about the festival's musical acts, read Thursday's BW entertainment guide in The Mississippi Press.

For a story about the Mississippi Gulf Coast's Fall Festival that is in the works, go to: http://visitmscoast.xanga.com/

Birds Are Back on the Coast

Pelicans again play follow-the-leader down the beach, and gulls swoop in flocks above the sand.

The calendar, not the successful capping of the Deepwater Horizon oil well, has brought the birds back to South Mississippi, experts say.

The pelicans and gulls that left to go to their northern breeding grounds are returning with their young. Adding to that, migration is on, said Mark LaSalle, director of the Pascagoula River Audubon Center in Moss Point. “There are lots of birds around.”

He and Ron Blackwell, the Sun Herald’s birding columnist, say they can’t tell if there are fewer birds than in past years, or how many died while oil poured into the Gulf.

“We know that we lost pelicans during the oil spill,” Blackwell said.

“We lost a lot of birds,” LaSalle said, but maybe not as many as was expected.

What was unexpected is the way people started paying attention to the birds when they saw oiled pelicans and realized the danger to the wildlife.

“It’s engaging people,” said LaSalle, who created the Coastal Bird Survey and began training the scores of volunteers who called to help. He said 80 percent of the people they are training are new to birding.

They are learning how to identify oiled birds, although LaSalle said it is difficult to catch and treat even a heavily oiled bird.

“We have no idea of what their fate was,” he said of the birds seen covered in oil after the spill. “Is a little oil bad? We don’t know.”

Despite oil spilled from a barge near the islands where the birds roost two or three years ago, “the pelican population was still robust enough they were taken off the endangered species list,” LaSalle said.

Capping the oil well doesn’t mean the birds are out of danger.

“It’s really not over yet,” said Blackwell, who estimates it will take a couple of years to know the impact of the oil on the birds.

The songbirds are just starting to migrate through South Mississippi, and he said, “We don’t know what that dynamic will be.” There are songbirds that feed along the Coast and need a good habitat.

“Some birds probe the sand to get the organisms in there,” he said. With oil trapped under the sand, there may not be as many flying north come spring.

LaSalle said gulls and other birds that fly as far as the Arctic in the summer are returning to the Coast. “This is where they’re going to spend the winter,” he said, and when the volunteers provide numbers from December’s Christmas Bird Count and the Great Backyard Bird Count in February, it may tell how the birds are faring.

Tourists and residents may not have returned to the beaches in pre-spill numbers, but Blackwell said, “It’s great to see the birds.”

http://www.sunherald.com/2010/09/05/2453924/birds-are-back-on-the-coast.html



For another story from The Sun Herald about the Ohr-O'Keefe Museum go to:
http://visitmscoast.xanga.com/