Robert DiLella Jr.. We moved here in 77. Oh, great. And I just started this out of, we have so many golden gifts and good people in our community that I just want an opportunity to put a shine of light on what the goodness is.
Keith Laakkonen. Appreciate that, yeah, that's awesome.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Yeah, now I appreciate what you do, it's special.
Keith Laakkonen. Thank you, yeah.
Robert DiLella Jr.. How did you end up in that career? Like how did somebody become what you became?
Keith Laakkonen. So as a kid, people would ask me what I wanted to be and I said, "Jacques Stowe." I was the nerdy kid who loved science and I always wanted to be Marine biologist, Jacques Stowe. And somehow--
Robert DiLella Jr.. I remember, I mean, that was on TV and my father watched it all the time and I was fascinated with that.
Keith Laakkonen. Yeah, Jacques Stowe, National Geographic, Mutual of Omaha, Marlon Perkins. And then I was gonna be Marine and somehow I ended up at UF doing wildlife ecology. I don't remember exactly the set of circumstances that got me there, but it was an incredible education. It was the best decision I ever made.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Florida over, was that a specialty at Gainesville then or was that something that they Had a big program for?
Keith Laakkonen. Yeah, they're really well known for their wildlife ecology program. It's one of the best in the Southeast. A lot of the major colleges have wildlife ecology programs and because UF is a land grant, sea grant university-- What does that mean? It's that they're funded, that basically the state and the federal actually funds a lot of their Research through UF, that's a statewide funded research. Okay. And so it's a really solid program and yeah, just being able to be there and actually one of my jobs I got just because my boss had the same degree and he knew what education I got. So he just hired me.
Keith Laakkonen. He goes, "I know what your training is." He pretty much hired me on the spot.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Yeah, it has that reputation.
Keith Laakkonen. It has a good reputation.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Now how about Gulf Coast, Florida Gulf Coast? What is their, what are they known for?
Keith Laakkonen. Yeah, so I still feel like they're relatively new because I remember when they were building it.
Robert DiLella Jr.. There was nothing there.
Keith Laakkonen. There was nothing there. So I got my master's there. I was very interested in policy at the time which is a very wonky thing but I was really interested in sea level rise policy because I was working at Fort Mary's Beach at the time and sea level rise is something that a lot of people don't want to think about if you're on a barrier island but you gotta do something about it.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Is that what we saw happen in Fort Mary's Beach when the tide came in and just buried those houses?
Keith Laakkonen. Yeah, that's basically what it looks like except sea level rise is sort of a long term, slow motion disaster. All of a sudden your beach gets narrower and narrower and then water's coming out of your storm drains, back flowing from high tides, you got water in the streets and then it gets more and more and more. It's a very slow, gradual thing.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Okay, so you were Studying that?
Keith Laakkonen. Yeah, it was my interest at the time with sea level rise policy. I don't know why. It is incredibly wonky and nerdy but I was pretty thrilled that I was able to graduate in my 40s, my master's degree and then I worked with my advisor and actually got my thesis published in a major scientific journal a couple years ago. So that'll be the first and last publication I do because it is way too hard to publish. Yeah, I have a lot of scientist friends who publish a lot and it's a lot of work but I'm thrilled to have one and done.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Yeah, well to have a regular job because you gotta manage a lot, you got a lot going on. It's not just you and it's not working a lab. To do that and the other and be able to--
Keith Laakkonen. Yeah, being a full-time biologist and getting a master's degree was definitely a hill but I'm glad I climbed it.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Because you wear a lot of hats there. You manage a lot of different types of people.
Keith Laakkonen. At a quirk school? Yeah, so it's interesting. I'm a biologist by training but I oversee over a $3 million budget. You oversee our Restoration conservation programs or education programs Our facilities. We've got a two and a quarter mile boardwalk and you can imagine--
Robert DiLella Jr.. Which is amazing, which is amazing. I absolutely love it. Every time I go, I'm like, why don't I come here every week? Why don't I take this walk every week? It's beautiful.
Keith Laakkonen. Oh yeah, there's nothing like it and it's the largest stand of old growth cypress forest on the planet. I mean, we're a more national park than most national parks.
Robert DiLella Jr.. That is so cool.
Keith Laakkonen. Yeah, and so, and then you get the boardwalk and then you got facilities and buildings and vehicles and your facilities management and then Raising money as a fundraiser working on development folks on this capital campaign. And then I'm involved in policy stuff All these other kinds of things and still get To dabble into science is enough. We're talking about restoration, talking about watershed kind of stuff. And so lots of hats.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Is it Who's it owned by? Is it its own entity or--
Keith Laakkonen. It's owned by National Audubon Society. It was actually, we were established in 1954 and we were established around those big old growth cypress trees. So in the 50s, there was a need for lumber because it was baby boomers. Plus we were rebuilding Europe at the time, which a lot of people forget. Cypress is a great wood for it. So in most of the Southeast, they had taken out most of Cypress Forest. And so they started in South Florida, they're working from big Cypress. They came up the pack of hedge strand. They were moving up towards Corkscrew and the community got together and said, hold up, we wanna protect this place. So the logger said, okay, we'll give you a year.
Keith Laakkonen. Let you raise the money. Came back in a year, Audubon Raised the money. The logger actually donated some of the first land to National Audubon Society. And because of that, we have 500 year old cypress trees, which is-- 500 year old? Yes, this Cypress Forest is, it's perfect. It's an amazing thing. You're seeing what a lot of Florida would have looked like before we got here. So it's really going back in time. And so, yeah, so we're owned by National Audubon Society. So we're private land, we're private landowners, which conservation land, you tend to think of national parks, state parks, public lands, but ours is private. And it is a sanctuary.
Keith Laakkonen. So one of the few ways you can see the sanctuaries is to go on a boardwalk, of course, or a world famous boardwalk, 80,000 people a year visit it. And you can also sign up for back country swamp walks and things like that. But the rest of the sanctuary is a sanctuary.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Back country's swamp walks, tell me about that, I didn't know about that.
Keith Laakkonen. Yeah, so you can, during the winter when there's water, obviously right now there's not much water, you can actually sign up and you go out On one of our swamp buggies to the site and you can actually-- You're swamp buggies on site, too. Yeah, we use, we have lots of swamp buggies because we need them.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Oh, cool.
Keith Laakkonen. And so you ride out on a swamp buggy and then you do a swamp walk with one of our educators and some of our educators, one of our educators been there for 25 years. And so these are super dedicated people and so you can get a chance to actually stand in the swamp. Wow. And it's an amazing experience. People are a little bit worried about it at first, but it's really neat. The most dangerous thing on a swamp walk is tripping. That's it. And the water is so clear, people have this, they use the word swamp as pejorative. It's beautiful. I mean, there's so much life in there and once you get out and you actually can see it and understand it and feel it's pretty amazing.
Keith Laakkonen. So a swamp walk is like, in my opinion, the best way to see some of corks.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Yeah, so you're in the water, you're waiting in the water. In the water, yep. And the swamp buggy actually takes you out to that area? Yep. So you get to ride in a real swamp buggy.
Keith Laakkonen. Yeah, get to ride in a real swamp buggy. So cool.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Yep. For people who have no idea, the only way I ever knew swamp buggies was the races they used to have, the swamp buggy races, but there's a real reason for having a swamp buggy.
Keith Laakkonen. Yeah, yeah, it's a needed vehicle. Yeah, the R's go a little bit slower than those. I love the swamp buggy races. Yeah. I've been there several times. So basically, there's these big things that are designed to go through water, and they have these big tires, and they're set up anywhere from six to eight to 10 feet above the ground, and I describe them as Mad Max. Every single one of our buggies was designed by a guy in a garage.
Keith Laakkonen. There's very few companies that actually do it, but we use them, Everglades National Park uses them, so it is the way to get around, because You have to use a swamp buggy, or an airboat, or an ATV to get into some of these areas, because they are inaccessible. I mean, it's tough going out there in the back country.
Robert DiLella Jr.. What time of year, is that available for people?
Keith Laakkonen. That is primarily December through March, and April, depending on what the water levels are. And I think our last one was actually Did actually go off, because we got just enough rain to have a little bit of water out there. But even if there's no water, you can still actually go out there, and it's a really neat experience, because you're in it. Because the boardwalk is amazing, and it's great to see the swamp, but they have the chance to be in the swamp.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Never knew that was available. That sounds really cool, I would love to do that. Is there Does the area where the boardwalk is stay, does water stay there throughout the year? Is there always water there?
Keith Laakkonen. Unfortunately not. It gets dried out. It gets dried out. So right now we're in the worst drought in 25 years.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Right, bad.
Keith Laakkonen. But part of the other issue is that swamps, they fill up with water, they get dry, and that's a natural cycle. So our staff have been monitoring water levels at the sanctuary for 60 years. We have all this water level data. About 20 years ago, our staff started noticing that it feels like it's getting drier more often, and longer, and quicker. And so they looked at the data, and sure enough, there was something that happened where they had improved some, the agencies had improved some drainage. And the additional drainage downstream of us actually is what began over drying the swamp.
Robert DiLella Jr.. So I'm in development.
Keith Laakkonen. Actually it wasn't development, it was actually flood control.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Yeah. Is that the Army Corps, or who doesn't?
Keith Laakkonen. It was the counties, it was the Water Management District. A lot of folks working together. Very, very good project. They definitely controlled flood, but unfortunately there was a little bit of a-- Had an impact there. Had an impact directly on us. And so now the swamp, unfortunately it's drier than it should be all the time because you have this drainage downstream.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Can that be reversed, or are they reversing?
Keith Laakkonen. Actually, yeah, we're working right now with the South Florida Water Management District, Collier County, Lee County, Village of Estero And others on a plan where we can actually go in and restore the area. And basically do a mini Everglades restoration project is what it'll amount to. So you do that with, basically say you engineer your way into the situation, you engineer your way out of it. So you can put in some control structures, some things downstream to stack that water up a little bit. It keeps more water in the system And that's good for the swamp.
Keith Laakkonen. But also I always ask people when I go talk, I said, "Who here drinks from an aquifer?" And I said, "That's a question you all do." And so the more water that you have in the landscape is recharging that aquifer, and that aquifer is what all of us in the South Florida need. So you keep water in the swamp, it keeps water in our wells, it keeps water in our pipes, it also reduces the risk of wildfires. So that's a really good investment, not only in Corkscrew, but in all of Southwest Florida, because these are the things that people need. We need More security from wildfires, and then we need More water that we can always have available because growth isn't slowing down.
Robert DiLella Jr.. No You're protected for good, right? That's never getting touched by anything. Correct. It's gonna let down protection.
Keith Laakkonen. Yeah, we're very fortunate. And it's not only just the sanctuary, but the sanctuary actually worked in the 80s and 90s to help designate and help the state protect other lands around us. So because of those efforts, the state of Florida, Lee County, Collier County acquired over 60,000 acres around Corkscrew. And these are areas that people may have heard called Bird Rookery Swamp, Crew Marsh, Flint Penn Strand, and that's a tune of $110 million to help protect basically private property and to help protect that watershed because it's that important. So the success kind of begets success. So you have this intact watershed. It's the Western Everglades.
Keith Laakkonen. People think the Everglades is way out east, but we are a part of the Western Everglades and we're what's left of it now.
Robert DiLella Jr.. So that's actually considered a part of the Western Everglades. Wow, I didn't realize that. You mentioned Village of Istero. Do you touch Village of Istero too?
Keith Laakkonen. We don't, but our watershed does. And that's the thing is you have to, when you model these areas, and there's all these hydrologic models, which is very complicated, but you have to involve all these other governments because they have their own things. You wanna make sure you're not flooding anybody else. If we keep more water in the sanctuary, we need to ensure that the water managers just provide the same level of service. So in other words, we don't wanna flood anybody. It's not gonna Have any negative impacts on people at all.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Do you have biologists on staff? Yeah. So what does a biologist do?
Keith Laakkonen. Well, we have several different types of biologists. We have folks in our research program and they're out there, they're Doing monitoring. For example, we do Wood stork flights. So we've been conducting those wood stork flights at Corkscrew for probably 30 years. And so during breeding season, our staff gets up in this plane and they basically circle around these wood stork colonies to count how many birds are nesting. So that's our long-term program there. We're also monitoring vegetation responses, especially in light of where we've done restoration work. We've done a lot of restoration works. We see how their environment's responding.
Keith Laakkonen. We're also tracking with wildlife cameras. Everybody can get these game cameras. We're actually tracking the wildlife at the sanctuary. And we have over a million pictures that we've looked through over the years. We're monitoring our small and medium, all the mammal populations. So that way we have an idea of what's going on. And then we also, our biologists are also out there controlling invasive species, exotic species. They're also monitoring for pythons. That's one of the reason we have-- Do you have them there? Yeah, we don't have them there yet.
Robert DiLella Jr.. So they haven't made their way north, or west?
Keith Laakkonen. We've had one a mile and a half south of us, that was killed on Immokalee Road. But we have done surveys, we have looked. And actually we have been working, we've been working with the Python Huntress. And she's actually been out there. They have a dog trained to smoke pythons. And so we've been working with them, and they've been out to our property several times and haven't smoked one yet. So it's probably a matter of time, but that's why we monitor the small mammal populations. Okay. Because when folks in Everglades National Park figured out that Where's the raccoons, where's the possums? Where are all those small mammals? It was too late, they were gone.
Keith Laakkonen. Because pythons have taken them out. So what we've seen with our wildlife images is that our populations are stable and have actually gone up because we have done so much restoration. And part of that also includes prescribed fire. So we do quite a bit of prescribed fire. So yeah, just a lot of science and research and monitoring. And there's always something interesting going on at the sanctuary. Our staff are working hard all the time.
Robert DiLella Jr.. What mammals are on property?
Keith Laakkonen. So Of course, we have everything from because we burn so much, we've got a lot of deer. And because of that, we have a lot.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Why does that correlate to deer, the birds and the birds?
Keith Laakkonen. So if you're burning these areas, it's basically growing back new growth, which is gonna support deer. And it's gonna support other mammals.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Which is why fire is part of the cycle.
Keith Laakkonen. Which also supports things like Florida panthers.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Because the panthers eat the deer.
Keith Laakkonen. Panthers are, there's a lot of panthers at Corps Group. Really? Yes.
Robert DiLella Jr.. I still have never seen one in my life.
Keith Laakkonen. It took me 364 days to see my first one at Corps Group.
(Laughing)
Robert DiLella Jr.. What was that moment like?
Keith Laakkonen. It was, I had only seen one before, and it was actually three cats. It was a mother and two sub-adults.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Oh my gosh.
Keith Laakkonen. It was very intense. And the first time I ever saw one, I literally was shaking.
Robert DiLella Jr.. I can't imagine.
Keith Laakkonen. And so we have At one point, the Fish and Wildlife Commission, they had a panther tracker, and he said that Corkscrew was the pantheriest place in the state of Florida.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Really?
Keith Laakkonen. And there's one spot where he said he could take anybody to see a panther, that one location. And there's a game camera there that captures a panther an average of every eight days. And one of our staff, she's been there 17 years. She's seen Florida panthers over 60 times. Because they have a lot of habitat back there. They have lots of deers. That's one of our big mammals. Yeah., very charismatic. There's the famous video of the panther on the boardwalk from pre-COVID. And if you go back and you watch the video, you don't know who's more scared, her or the panther. Because the panther wants no part of that person. And so, we have quite a few panthers around.
Keith Laakkonen. We have bear, we have Lots of small mammals. We also have foxes, gray fox.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Foxes too, I've never seen fox in Florida.
Keith Laakkonen. Gray fox, mostly. Really? I actually-- Now how big do they get? They're about that big., they're about the size of a small to medium dog. Okay. Long tail. We have coyotes. So yeah, lots of--
Robert DiLella Jr.. So there are coyotes, yeah, okay. I hear them in my neighbor. I live off Livingston. Okay. By the county park. And I can hear them sometimes like howling at night or some crazy thing, ritual that they do.
Keith Laakkonen. Yeah, they're out there. And actually last night, because I live in Golden Gate Estate, it's my blink camera actually captured one in my backyard.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Is that right?
Keith Laakkonen. Yeah, so they're around.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Yeah, it's really neat. So also birds. One thing I remember specifically last time my wife and I were there, we were seeing these beautiful birds that I'd never seen here. Real, real little ones, but colorful.
Keith Laakkonen. Oh, warblers, yeah, warblers.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Is that what they are?
Keith Laakkonen. Yeah, migration is just wrapping up now. So our birds have just come from South America, Central America, Cuba. And so they're moving all the way through Florida and they're going up more at the breed. And so quark screw is a great stopover point both in the spring and the fall. Okay. The fall I think is a little bit better birding because the birds are taking their time. They've already bred. So they're taking a little bit more time coming through. So fall can be very good for birds at quark screw.
Robert DiLella Jr.. It's just a stopover point for them. They don't stay.
Keith Laakkonen. They're in there, they're getting some food, they're hanging out maybe a day or two and then they're off.
Robert DiLella Jr.. That's amazing.
Keith Laakkonen. And I'm a huge birder. And so I've been going to quark screw as a birder for I've been a member for a long time. And actually I've been going to quark screw since I was a kid,? So, but these little warblers are just fantastic. And they have an amazing life journey that they're doing.
Robert DiLella Jr.. And, -- Those little birds go all that way.
Keith Laakkonen. And you think one of our other markets for birds is swallow tail kites. Now you can probably see these. If you're at quark screw, they've come out a few times to visit, you will see one. And they're breeding here because they come from Central and South America to breed., so that's another migratory bird.
Robert DiLella Jr.. What's the name of that bird?
Keith Laakkonen. It's called a swallow tail kite. It's this white and black raptor and they've got this big forked tail.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Oh yes. Yes. Oh yes, I've seen those.
Keith Laakkonen. And you can watch those guys fly for an hour and they'll barely flap their wings. I mean, they're just masters of the sky.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Aerodynamic or something.
Keith Laakkonen. They're aerodynamic. And so they have nesting in the sanctuary. So they're breeding right now too.
Robert DiLella Jr.. So they're not here all the time either.
Keith Laakkonen. Not here all the time. Yep, they, I believe I heard once that the indigenous people used to call them the hurricane birds because they leave in August before we get most of our hurricanes. So, yeah. Oh wow. So they'll be out of here before that.
Robert DiLella Jr.. I thought I've seen one of those birds go up to like a fruit tree and just pull a whole piece of fruit out, is that possible? Would they do that?
Keith Laakkonen. Or they So small tailgates, they are Really good hunters. They occasionally will grab lizards out of trees. Oh, they're meaty.
Robert DiLella Jr.. They'll grab eggs too.
Keith Laakkonen. Yeah. Yeah. So they're-- Eat a lot of dragonflies. Oh really? Yeah, so they'll eat a lot of those things. Yeah, that would be, there's a lot of those warblers and other species like that. Yeah, we'll find out. The neotropicals, they love those fruits though for sure.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Okay, but these birds are-- Yeah. Oh, they're birds of prey almost.
Keith Laakkonen. Yeah, they are birds of prey, exactly. Yeah, that's cool.
Robert DiLella Jr.. That's what they are. Yeah. I love to see that. And then what other How about the eagles, hawks?
Keith Laakkonen. Yeah, we've got several species of hawks at the sanctuary. Red shoulder hawks is our most common. If you go out there right now, I almost guarantee you'll hear or see one because they're breeding and they're loud.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Oh really?
Keith Laakkonen. And they've got some chicks coming out. There's also other species of hawks in the area. Red tail hawks, we have a few of those around. And then during the winter, there's some other species that overwinter here. And then of course we've got osprey around. Bald eagles, there's a few out there, not too many. And our most numerous raptors actually vultures. Vultures are, there's a lot of them out there. And especially this time of year, if the water gets really low and those fish start dying.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Oh, that's where they go.
Keith Laakkonen. Vultures are our best friend. So they're cleaning up the fish.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Oh, okay, yeah, yeah, we need them.
Keith Laakkonen. Yep, definitely, definitely.
Robert DiLella Jr.. So the thing about the vulture, when you see the vulture over the sky, they're looking for something that's dead on the ground.
Keith Laakkonen. Yep, and turkey vultures can actually smell a corpse under the ground. Really? Yeah, from the sky, yes. So they're very amazing. Yeah, but they can actually do, yeah.
Robert DiLella Jr.. How about turkey? You don't have turkey out there.
Keith Laakkonen. We do have wild turkey. We have wild turkey. We have bobwhite, they're called quail, northern bobwhite quail. We have woodpeckers. There's little things called brown-headed nuthatches, these little tiny, tiny bird brownbirds, and they nest in pine trees, and they sound like a dog's squeaky toy when you hear them. And so they only nest in very healthy pine forest, which we also have a lot of at the sanctuary.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Okay, one thing I noticed in my neighborhood, it seems like at sunset or so, I see birds coming east As if they're going home or something. Yep. Is that what they really do?
Keith Laakkonen. Yeah, so they typically, all these birds typically have some kind of roost, and we have a couple roosts at the sanctuary where the birds come at night. And so that's a place where they are generally safe from predators, they all hang out together. All these different species will come in, and they'll hang out in this one area overnight, and then the morning they'll leave. And that's different from a rookery, because a rookery is where they breed.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Ah, okay. So a Wood stork is one of the, is that an endangered bird?
Keith Laakkonen. The US Fish and Wildlife Service actually just recently downlisted it. And the story of wood storks is actually the story of Audubon, Florida, and corkscrew. So in the late 1800s, there was this fashion craze, it was for Basically the plumes from these egrets and herons. Sorry, I didn't mean that.
Robert DiLella Jr.. That's a bird terbing, huh? That's awesome.
Keith Laakkonen. Yeah. That's great. I even told myself I needed to mute this.
Robert DiLella Jr.. That's okay, I think it was no accident.
Keith Laakkonen. I've actually had birders actually try to ID that species, and I said, "No, that's my phone." That's great. Birders are funny. So yeah, in the late 1800s, there was this fashion trend of these women loved these bird plumes, and they're putting them in hats. People were actually putting entire dead birds on their heads. Crazy fashion thing at the time, an ounce of these feathers from these egrets, snowy egrets, great egrets, wood storks, rosiette spoon bills, name all the egrets, an ounce of those feathers was worth more than an ounce of gold. Wow.
Keith Laakkonen. And so these hunters would go into these rookeries at night because they have these things, when they're breeding is when they have these plumes on, and the hunters would shoot out the entire colony in one night. And of course, when you shoot out the colony, they're on eggs, they're on chicks, and so everything in the colony dies. And so they're absolutely wiping them out. So they passed a law, passed a couple of laws trying to protect it, but there was no enforcement of it. So Audubon hired wardens all over the state of Florida to come and protect these rookeries. And there was actually one The first one who became famous, unfortunately, was Guy Bradley.
Keith Laakkonen. Guy Bradley was protecting these wading birds in the Florida Keys and he was murdered. He was one of three Audubon wardens to be murdered for this. Wow. And because--
Robert DiLella Jr.. Because they were so sought after, they were told for that.
Keith Laakkonen. Because they were so sought after. And it became front page news. I actually have a headline from the Los Angeles Times about Guy Bradley, and it became all of a sudden it put pressure on Actually the market for it. And then we actually had one of those Audubon wardens, who was named Rhett Green, and he stayed at Corkscrew to guard the wood storks. At that time, there were probably, there were thousands of wood storks nesting. So massive colony. And so these guys, he was willing to put his life on the line for these birds. And several actually did.
Keith Laakkonen. And because of the outcry from the murder of Guy Bradley, and all these things that happened, some of the first laws to protect birds in the US were passed. And so because of that, I mean, Audubon's been doing work in Florida for 125 years. And so we had a long legacy. And so, wood storks is part of, even before Corkscrew was established as a sanctuary, Audubon was there protecting it.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Yeah, well, that's something I did not know that about that Or wildlife here, even that existed, that people would kill for that.
Keith Laakkonen. Yeah, and actually some species, there's actually a couple of species that haven't quite recovered still. And some of those big brookeries inland have never renested. They're just gone, they're completely wiped out.
Robert DiLella Jr.. So, brookery you said is a nesting area.
Keith Laakkonen. Nesting area, yeah.
Robert DiLella Jr.. And there's brookery bay where you worked at before too. So what is brookery bay?
Keith Laakkonen. Yeah, brookery bay. I've had the thrill of working at two pretty amazing, several amazing places, but as director of brookery bay of seven and a half years, worked there for a total of over 10. And there was a brookery in the middle of this bay, and a very well-known brookery, so-called brookery bay. And so there's a movement to protect that area because at one time they were gonna put this new road through brookery bay, basically to connect.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Which is where, by the way?
Keith Laakkonen. A brookery bay, if you go down, basically if you go down, call your boulevard 951, just as you cross US 41, a brookery bay's learning center is right there. And if you go, and basically from that--
Robert DiLella Jr.. On the way to Marco?
Keith Laakkonen. On the way to Marco. From that point all the way to Marco, all of that is brookery bay, 110,000 acres. And so there was a road which is gonna be There's a big rally around it, Audubon, the conservancy was established around it, actually helped prevent the road to nowhere from being built. And so that was there in brookery bay, and so those brookeries are still there now.
Robert DiLella Jr.. How long ago was that?
Keith Laakkonen. That was, let's see, 45, 50 years ago now. I had to do the math. When I was there as director, we celebrated our 40th anniversary, so it's been a couple years since that.
Robert DiLella Jr.. So what is the organization itself, and what does that organization do?
Keith Laakkonen. So brookery bay is actually a national estuary research reserve, and it's managed by this Agreement between the Florida Department of Environmental Protection and NOAA, which is the federal government, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency. And so they fund brookery bay to do local research, to do local projects, to Protect local estuaries, and all of those things.
Robert DiLella Jr.. So you worked there?
Keith Laakkonen. I was director there.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Was that before here?
Keith Laakkonen. That was before Corkscrew. And I was very happy at brookery bay, but the chance to work at Corkscrew was just I just had to try. Yeah, yeah. It was kind of always a dream of mine, so.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Was it? Yeah, yeah.
Keith Laakkonen. It's kind of surreal to work where I work.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Yeah, yeah, well it's such an incredible place. I mean, it really is such a part of why I love Florida so much.
Keith Laakkonen. Yeah, yeah, definitely.
Robert DiLella Jr.. What Should people expect? Anybody who's never been there, what should they expect going to visit?
Keith Laakkonen. Corkscrew, right? Yeah, so you're gonna go into our learning center.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Excuse me one second, is Mike okay? Are you okay with the audio? Audio, okay, good. Okay, sorry, I leaned away. No, you're fine, you're fine.
Keith Laakkonen. Yeah, so the first time you visit, you're gonna go to our Blair Visitor Center. And there's admission prices. And I remind people that every time, every dollar you spend at Corkscrew goes back to protecting the resource. So that's why we have admissions. Called the Blair Resource Center.
Robert DiLella Jr.. The Blair Visitor Center. Is that because the Blair family?
Keith Laakkonen. Dorothy Blair family.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Dorothy Blair, she was a client here many, many years ago.
Keith Laakkonen. Oh really? Yes, yes. I remember her well. We have an endowment to this day which funds much of the operations of the Blair Center.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Is that right? Oh, that's awesome.
Keith Laakkonen. And actually this past winter, we unveiled the new Sporlino Foundation Discovery Center. All new exhibits, it's amazing. We worked with a company from Ann Arbor, Michigan for almost two years on it. And it came out better than we could have expected. It's absolutely fantastic. Lots of hands-on stuff for kids, lots of wildlife in there. Very well-written Exhibits that aren't too sciency. Get your interest. And you can actually hear, play different bird calls. You can actually play the sound of an alligator or a bobcat or a panther or bear. And so we have this diorama. That'll be the first thing you visit. And then you go out onto this magical boardwalk.
Keith Laakkonen. And if you really have time, we have a two and a quarter mile loop. If you don't have a lot of time, we have a one mile loop. And so basically that boardwalk isn't gonna take you through several different habitats. It's gonna take you through pine flatwoods, wet prairie. And then you go into the cypress forest and then you get into the old growth cypress forest. And these are these big massive trees. You can't reach your arms around these trees. They're absolutely incredible. And some of these trees are well over 500 years old. And they have, they are just full of life. They've got mosses on them. They've got lichens on them. They've got orchids on them.
Keith Laakkonen. They've got mosses on them. And including our super ghost orchid, which is probably the most famous orchid in Florida. So it's a pretty amazing experience. Depending on what time of year, you're always gonna see something different. So right now the water levels are getting low. So you'll see some of the wading birds are coming in to feed in some of those areas. In the summertime, even though it's hot, it is really lush and green. It's basically rainforest. And then in the fall things get cooler. You have different birds coming through. Fall migrants and then the wintertime have all our real snowbirds down here, which is our wintering birds.
Keith Laakkonen. And so, yeah, just the Ability to see all these different things. And I think every time I go on the boardwalk, I see something new. And I've been there a few times. And we have volunteers who've been volunteering with us for 20 years. And they're always excited and they're still coming out and they're still spending their time with us so that they can support our mission. So we're just absolutely thrilled. So it's a great time. And then in the winter, we're open a little bit later. And then also in the winter, we also have our cafe, which is open. So you can go and you have lunch. You can go visit the Discovery Center again.
Keith Laakkonen. And then we always encourage people to get a membership, especially if you're a birder. If you're gonna go out there more than a couple times a year, that's why I did it.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Okay, so a membership is a pass like that?
Keith Laakkonen. Yeah, pass, yeah. And you can go as many times as you want. And it's We have a lot of folks who come in, they bring their families in all the time, especially in March, we see lots of families down on spring break, and they're spending time with their kids. And it's great to have kids get out and see this amazing place that we have.
Robert DiLella Jr.. One thing that surprised me, I think my wife and I went during the summer and it was lush and beautiful. When I was in the shade, it's almost like it's air-con, the water's right there. So it's almost, it's much cooler than I expected because a lot of it is so covered and you just felt like it was in a tunnel.
Keith Laakkonen. It's basically those trees are creating a microclimate, that swamp. So in the wintertime, if it's cold, and it was actually kind of a cold winter this year, it really was. You could go in those mornings, you'd walk into the swamp, it is much warmer.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Oh really?
Keith Laakkonen. And then the days like today, I go into the swamp, it's cooler. And so it's that microclimate which actually is so important to the health of those old cypress trees and all those plants because those orchids and those mosses, they need that very specific microclimate with humidities always balanced and they're protected from freezing in that deep swamp. So it's very much a balance and These plants have evolved to be there. And so yeah, you've got trees on trees on trees in there.
Robert DiLella Jr.. If I remember correctly, I think even some of the boardwalk was built around the tree, like the tree's actually coming through the--
Keith Laakkonen. Yeah, there's a couple of spots like that on the boardwalk.
Robert DiLella Jr.. So that was fascinating.
Keith Laakkonen. Yeah, it's just, it's really neat. But I just hope that tree doesn't fall down.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Yeah, right. Does that happen?
Keith Laakkonen. Actually in 2017 with Hurricane Irma, the boardwalk was breached I believe in nine or 10 different places. It was impacted very badly. And so if you go through the boardwalk, you can actually see some of those trees that actually were cut off the boardwalk and you can see some of those big trees were cut. And Hurricane Irma actually made landfall 57 years to the day of Hurricane Donna, which also basically destroyed the Corps of Shoe Boardwalk.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Wasn't it the same day?
Keith Laakkonen. Same day, 57 years to the day.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Wow, I didn't realize that.
Keith Laakkonen. I'm also very much a weather nerd, so.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Yeah, that was the last bad one that really did so much, but yeah, I didn't realize 57 years to the day.
Keith Laakkonen. Yeah, yeah. And so yeah, so just all these things bounce together to make the swamp an amazing place. Orchids are starting to bloom right now, different species, I saw some in flower last week. We have people who come out just to see the orchids. And they're just throughout. They're just, you basically look off the boardwalk. Growing wildly on the ground. You're gonna see them, yeah. And there's multiple different species out there that are actually endangered species. So yeah, it's one day. We probably have some of the highest orchid diversity of any place in North America.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Really, wow. Yeah, it's really neat. You can see just walking along the boardwalk there.
Keith Laakkonen. Yeah, walking, yep, you can see all kinds of stuff.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Alligators?
Keith Laakkonen. Of course. We had one this winter that was, it was on one island. All winter long, I used to joke with tourists that I had our staff come out in the morning and actually put the alligator there. So It's a great place to see alligators. Depending on what time of year you go out there, for some of those cold days, they're not gonna be up because they're cold-blooded reptiles. So you'll see them, different sizes. I've seen alligators well over 10 foot in there and then we also see babies and everything in between. So alligators are an important part of the ecosystem. They keep everything healthy and in check.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Which part of the trail are they on? Or where would I see them? Is there a particular area?
Keith Laakkonen. In the wet season, you can see them anywhere there's water.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Anywhere there's water.
Keith Laakkonen. But the area you see them probably the most is an area called Lettuce Lakes. And as you're exiting the boardwalk, there's this one area where it's very open and it's like the grand finale of the Cypress Boardwalk experience where you get to see the most birds, the most everything. It's right there in Lettuce Lakes. And so that's typically where you see alligators. Our staff saw the otters put on a show this year.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Otters, yeah. Otters. I love otters.
Keith Laakkonen. We've got baby barred owls are there this year. We've actually got baby black vultures, which are actually very cute.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Oh yeah.
Keith Laakkonen. Got to stick up for black vultures. Babies are really cute. So Great experience. People saw Bear off the boardwalk this year. A couple of years ago, I actually have video of a bobcat just walking. I love seeing bobcats. So yeah. How cool is that? And all kinds of amazing things. Someone actually behind was walking out of our visitor center about a month ago, and they looked, and there was a Florida panther sitting right there. So I got this amazing picture that we actually shared on social media. So yeah, it's your best chance to see a Florida panther. And it's not a It's a tough chance, but it still seems to be. It could happen. It could happen, yeah.
Robert DiLella Jr.. So it's pretty exciting for you to go to work every day.
Keith Laakkonen. Yeah, I never, you never know what's gonna happen. I say corkscrews is never a dull moment. A lot of my, unfortunately as a biologist, the higher you get up, the more you sit in meetings and Zooms and emails and meetings. But Every day I try to get out of the office, I try and at least go see the Discovery Center, go see, just go look at the boardwalk, just look at the space I'm in because I wanna make sure that I stay connected to the place and how important it is because it's truly amazing.
Robert DiLella Jr.. What were you like as a child growing up? Was this world yours, being in Florida?
Keith Laakkonen. Yeah, I mean, I didn't know anything else. Always wanted to be, I think I mentioned before, when I was a kid, people say, what do you want to be when you grow up? And I said, Jacristo. And so, yeah, I always wanted to be some kind of scientist or biologist.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Well, you're always just messing with animals and lizards and just-- Yeah
Keith Laakkonen. Snakes never faze me. I was always Looking for turtles and frogs. I grew up in Cape Coral. It was very different that many years ago and actually burrowing owls were everywhere. And back then the burrowing owls weren't the nice friendly ones. They would actually dive bomb you on your bike.
Robert DiLella Jr.. To protect them?
Keith Laakkonen. Yeah, they were just protecting their nest. So me and my friends would have races, try to ride the bike, pass the burrowing owl, without getting attacked. But I just remember always being somewhere Doing something in nature. There was a group that Bill Hammond had. It was called the Monday Kids. Went out six miles cyberswamp. I went out there as a kid and I was the only kid who was in the swamp and happy about it. I remember actually they had to pull me out because I was neck deep in the swamp and I was like, this is so cool. Why would I want to go back to school? And so, yeah, it never fazed me. I was fishing a lot as a kid. I spent a lot of time fishing.
Keith Laakkonen. So it was always something outside and even today, it's the same thing. I'm fishing, I'm birding, I'm doing something outside, whenever possible.
Robert DiLella Jr.. What has changed over time around fishing and birding for all these years?
Keith Laakkonen. Birding, birding it all depends on the year. What's going on as far as migration. This migration for us this year wasn't great because the winds were a little bit east, a lot east actually.
Robert DiLella Jr.. How does that affect things?
Keith Laakkonen. So when these birds are, if you actually look at the Key West radar in April, in April, you can actually, about three hours after sunset, you can actually see this massive, it looks like rain coming, it's not its birds. And they're heading across the Florida state. Wow, you've thought it straight. And so depending on the wind direction, this year, winds were very east. So those birds were coming up, they were being pushed out into the Gulf, which means they weren't landing in Collier County. Now, if we had more west winds or north winds, it tends to push them towards us in the land. And so they have a little bit better.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Oh, really? So the winds coming across the state going out, pushing them off.
Keith Laakkonen. Yeah, and so, and then So it really depends on the winds for that. So migration is always good. Audubon has seen a loss in birds over time But birding is always fun. And then fishing I think the fishing is as good here as it ever has been. I mean One thing I always say is that, fishing is not just great, but it's a critical piece of the economy, right? Somebody comes down from New York, they book a fishing guide, they stay in our hotels, eat in our restaurants, and he wants to go out there and catch a snook or a tarpon. And then especially if they release that fish, the guide has to pay his mortgage, and all that happens because you have a healthy ecosystem.
Keith Laakkonen. So the 10,000 islands in our coast is very healthy, great fishery, so Redfish, snook, actually went out with a guide this summer, late this summer, and actually caught a legal snook, and actually was able to have grilled snook, and it was incredible.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Really? I didn't know you could do that anymore. I didn't know you could catch them on our dog. My father used to catch them.
Keith Laakkonen. Yeah, there's a real tight slot on them. Okay. It's like 20 to 31 inches, and only certain times a year. Right. And so I caught one, it was right in the slot. Nice. So that fish--
Robert DiLella Jr.. That was by far the best fish I remember growing up eating.
Keith Laakkonen. It still is. We had, yeah, we ate that, my wife and I ate that, ate all night fish for a while. Yeah, that's nice. So the fishing's still good down here. I think that's a credit to land conservation And also making sure that we're protecting our inland land. So the water corkscrew swamp is very clean, and that water goes out to Wiggins Pass and Cocotche River. And so if anyone was here in 2016, you remember Guacamole algae, dead whale sharks, it was a nightmare of all the red tide, the toxic algae. And so we know we need clean water going to the coast.
Keith Laakkonen. And that's what make areas like corkscrew and the watershed so important is that those are clean natural waters, and those waters going from there going to the coast. And so Cori County has a lot of land conserved. I think I've hit the percentage of it, but a lot of that conservation leads to clean water and leads to good fisheries, and also great habitat for things like birds coming through, panthers and all those things. So yeah, so we're really lucky down here that we have a lot of conservation lands because it drives a huge piece of the economy.
Robert DiLella Jr.. I have to ask this question because I was never as good as my father, but he was great at snook fishing. And they were just so smart. I mean, they just seemed to so know, like they could see the line. And they had this dock that he had, this dock light off our dock in Vanderbilt Beach where I grew up and just, he'd just go out to the dock to come on down and we'd see the snook out there just popping, but it was so hard to actually, because they're just smart.
Keith Laakkonen. Yeah, and they have to be in the mood and you can drop a live shroom right in front of them. Sometimes they're not gonna eat it., and then there's other times where, you toss a bay fish into a hole and as soon as it hits, the snook is on it., so they're challenging. They're always a challenging fish to catch and find. Redfish are a little more reliable. Redfish are like, they're like, they're stomachs, they're just like moving stomachs that they will eat a lot. And so I've caught a lot more redfish in my life than I have snook.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Yeah, never even caught redfish. I always like eating it. Like a great eating fish. Yeah, definitely. I just don't see it as much. Yeah. Who had a big influence on you growing up?
Keith Laakkonen. The fact that my parents Had me, involved in science and they got me in the National Geographic magazine and they, let me be, a kid who was interested in science, I think was really important. You know, some of my role models growing up, were, some of the TV stars, some of the guys on, National Geographic and things like that. So those were always bigger influences. I remember actually one of my favorite, well, I'll type people's actually Steve Irwin, because he was so enthusiastic about WAPA. And I just always, I was, just how excited he got people. And then so, so a variety of influences, I had some great teachers, growing up, but, I was an only child.
Keith Laakkonen. So I got to kind of, explore and had a chance to be a kid in South of Florida.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Yeah, I'm sure teachers love the fact that you were interested in science or interested in what they teach.
Keith Laakkonen. Yeah, I was generally most times the only kid interested in science.
(Both Laughing)
Keith Laakkonen. Yeah, which doesn't make you very popular, but it kind of worked out for me.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Yeah, I'd say. I'm okay with it. Yeah, I'm grateful for that. In fact, it doesn't work out like that. Yeah. What Would you say, going back to your days being raised, what has changed the most In Southwest Florida that you've seen?
Keith Laakkonen. What do you miss? Growth and development. Yeah, this town, I don't, there's times I don't recognize it. I've been on a mockily road a few times and I'm listening to an audio book or something and I realize I'm not sure I know where I am because things have changed so much.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Suddenly there's a whole building that went up in a week.
Keith Laakkonen. Yeah, exactly. The walls were up. And you look at, this development is increasing, increasing. And so, that's the one thing I noticed. Growing up in Cape Coral, there's a place in Fort Myers called Bell Tower Shops. I remember when they built it, we always said, why are they putting something way out there? You can't even find Bell Tower in the middle of Fort Myers now. And basically 41, once you left that part of Fort Myers, there was nothing.
Robert DiLella Jr.. To Nate, I know. Nothing.
Keith Laakkonen. Nothing all the way down to-- Christian State Park and that's it.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Yeah, you had to go to Pine Ridge Road before you saw something else.
Keith Laakkonen. Yeah, and so that's been the biggest thing, everybody loves Florida and, they wanna move here. And so that's also a challenge that, in conservation that we have to deal with on a regular basis is how, you can have growth and you can have people move here and still find a way to have a balanced ecosystem. And that's not easy, but, we're doing everything we can.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Are your parents still here?
Keith Laakkonen. My mother passed away a couple years ago. My dad lives in the Springs actually. So yeah, just like she saw on this weekend, so dad's still around.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Yeah, what was your mother's name?
Keith Laakkonen. My name is Sharon.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Sharon, how would she describe you?
Keith Laakkonen. Oh, well, she'd be crazy proud of me, I'm sure. She's just happy, I'm a scientist. And, I took them out, several places I work and they got to see, Rookery Bay and I got to see these other places. And they were just like always thrilled because, they, I turned out to be a biologist, and so they're Took them out when I was working on Fort Myers Beach, I was working with beach nesting birds, snowy plovers, and so I took them out to see the snowy plovers. And so, yeah, they were always thrilled. Yeah, and so that's just always been a theme.
Robert DiLella Jr.. And not just a biologist, a very successful biologist too on top of that. Yeah, thanks.
Keith Laakkonen. Good things. I'm not sure how it all happened, but I'm pretty thrilled with how it kind of ended up. You know, so it's very, very surreal sometimes if I, because thinking about corkscrew and, when I was a younger scientist, the director of corkscrew was just like bigger than life guy, Ed Carlson, literally bigger than life. Huge Carlson. Ed Carlson, he just passed away. But to think that I now have Ed Carlson's job is like, it's very interesting, and so, yeah. So it definitely, it definitely keeps you humble, because you know that I'm there to, help protect this place and to, help support my staff to do their job.
Keith Laakkonen. And then to support, all the work that we're doing, we've got, we've got all these volunteers and donors who are supporting our mission. And so, you have to make sure that you're honoring everything that they're doing by working as hard as you can to help protect this place for now and into the future too.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Yeah. Well, they must feel good about having such a great passionate steward at the helm for their investments.
Keith Laakkonen. Yeah, it's nice, yeah, I worked for the government for 25 years before coming to the nonprofit sector. And it took a little, it took a little un-while to untrain my brain from government thinking. And it's kind of- I can't even imagine. I can't, actually one of the funniest moments was we were at a workshop for this developer and they were having this big subdivision that they're building and the president of development was there. And I was talking to my friend, she worked at the DEP and I was at Corkscrew, I think I'd been there all of like six months. And I was like, wow. And she goes, there's the president of the development. You can go tell him what you think.
Keith Laakkonen. And I said, I can. And I went up and I was very firm, polite, and like, hey, these are all the impacts you're gonna have. And it was a very, it was an interesting experience because that's the kind of thing you can't say it with government. You have to be very careful, very calculated. But now I can truly advocate on behalf of the ecosystem. We can work with our policy folks to try to make a difference in how these things are planned. And so that we have places for Panthers to coexist With us. And so coming from government side, it turns out that when you work for the government, you figure out how to get things done because there's lots of ways around things.
Keith Laakkonen. And so this makes you more creative when you come to the nonprofit sector, which is very different. But it's
Robert DiLella Jr.. Freeing.
Keith Laakkonen. It is very freeing, yeah. It, like I said, it took a while to unwind some of those habits, but it's nice being able to say what you think, and to say what you think. And as long as it's backed up by science, it's backed up by policy, those kind of things, and actually be able to have, be able to make a difference in what you say and how you advocate for it.
Robert DiLella Jr.. If you weren't doing this, what would you be doing? Meteorologist. Really? That's your backup.
Keith Laakkonen. Yeah, I would have had to change my Degree path, but as growing up as a kid, I was always fasting with hurricanes. I used to have my hurricane tracking chart as a kid. And so, yeah, I would either be this, or the other dream would have been being a hurricane hunter would be the other thing.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Jim Cantoria.
Keith Laakkonen. Yeah, just to be able to fly a plane into the middle of a hurricane. Oh, really?
Robert DiLella Jr.. Fly a plane into it.
Keith Laakkonen. Oh, I would have. If I ever had a chance to do that, I would jump at it in a split second. It would just be incredible, yeah. Wow.
Robert DiLella Jr.. You mentioned listening to an audio book, Audible. What's on your, what books, podcasts, are you listening to these days?
Keith Laakkonen. So I'm big into action stuff. I'm a Tom Clancy guy. I'm a big fan of that stuff. Actually, I just started the new Dan Brown book that everybody's talking about, The Secret of Secrets. One of my favorite audio book of all time is The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which is incredibly, incredible audio book. I just go back and I listen to it all the time. Michael Crichton stuff, that's generally my kind of thing.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. It's so rich and so full of so much because I'm trying to work my way through it on the Audible book. And I love the narrator too, so great. How would you describe that to somebody?
Keith Laakkonen. You can't. And I remember as a kid, I would see these books, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. They were in the science section, but they weren't science because I was buying science books. I didn't know what to do with them. And then I finally heard the audio book and I went, "Oh, this is incredible." And so I always go back and I love to Hear about Zafod Beebel-Brox and hopefully who runs for president this next year coming up.
Robert DiLella Jr.. I mean, Elon Musk had talked about it so much, how influential it was on his life and made a big difference, right?
Keith Laakkonen. Yeah, it's a fun audio book and it's nice to just kind of decompress and be in a story for a while. Turn the brain off and on in a different way.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Yeah. But it's got so many symbolic things to it, right? Like so many interesting Parallels.
Keith Laakkonen. Thanks for all the fish.
(Laughing)
Robert DiLella Jr.. That's cool. What's On your music playlist?
Keith Laakkonen. I tend to be like, I've always been kind of a rock guy, so I tend to listen to Rock and hip hop. That's basically my playlist. Also alternative Always try to get into new stuff. Pretty kind of set in my Pandora channel. I'm always fine tuning it, but yeah, I mean, groups like Fost of the People and Tame Impala and groups like that.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Tame Impala, yeah, I love Tame Impala. Fantastic.
Keith Laakkonen. Love them. Fantastic, yeah. So those are definitely my kind of groups. I love that kind of music. So that's, and actually I love Rob Zombie. Oh yes, yeah, awesome. Occasionally gotta have some metal.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Awesome, yeah. So Pandora serves, see, second person has mentioned that to me today because I don't like Spotify's Serving list or what they think I like, but I remember having Pandora, and Pandora kind of served more of what I--
Keith Laakkonen. Yeah, and then I've got sub channels set up in Pandora for different things. I've got the Zombie channel, I've got Fost of the People, and then I've got my general playlist. And I was listening to Beastie Boys one minute, and then Fost of the People the next minute, and then De La Soul the next, just driving here, driving here today. I was listening to music trying to get like, kind of get pumped up.
Robert DiLella Jr.. That's great, because I'm building a playlist, a Spotify playlist of our guests and their musical tastes. So now I have a new Genre, a new kind of version of what your playlist is for us, and I love Tim and Paul. Everybody who said Beastie Boys, all
Keith Laakkonen. That good stuff. I grew up with, yeah, and it's kind of crazy when one of the Beastie Boys are actually dying.
Robert DiLella Jr.. I know.
Keith Laakkonen. Yeah, I'm like, how am I this old that my rock stars are not? Yeah, yeah.
Robert DiLella Jr.. What could this happen? I know. That really shook me recently, when that, yeah, that's-- Yeah. Because I still see them as, when I first saw them. I don't see them any other way. Exactly. They didn't age like me. They're not supposed to. Exactly. Yeah.
Keith Laakkonen. Adulting is overrated. Yeah, right.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Do you have a hidden talent?
Keith Laakkonen. Nothing hidden. Definitely birding is my talent, and that's something that you have to put a lot of time in to get anybody can bird. So there's people who think, there's all these different warblers, like you were talking about, these different colors. So there's an app called Merlin, and you can basically put it out, and it will ID birds by their call. And you can take a picture of a bird, and you can ask Merlin what it is.
Robert DiLella Jr.. It's an app called Merlin.
Keith Laakkonen. It's an app called Merlin. It's free. And so it can ID birds by their call. And so, but that also helps ID them by what they look like. And so, that's a talent that, it's not hidden, but that's one I've worked on for a long time. And I'm always trying to get better. We're headed to Costa Rica next month, on a birding trip actually. So gonna see some more birds. And then, I don't think I have any other hidden talents. I don't have any music talent at all. When I was in third grade, I remember I was trying to play the recorder, and my music teacher just came up, and she said, "Some people aren't meant to play music."
(Laughing)
Keith Laakkonen. So I took that as a sign, and like, okay, let's just be a science guy. Stayed a science. Yeah, yeah.
Robert DiLella Jr.. What was your We got a cappuccino here, but do you have a go-to coffee drink?
Keith Laakkonen. That's it. And yeah, in our house, we always have fresh marin coffee Which you take for granted until you go to a hotel room, and then you have their stuff. And so, but yeah, I mean, I gotta have my two cups of coffee in the morning. Cappuccino, it's always a bonus. Yeah, but coffee is great. I'm looking forward to the coffee in Costa Rica too.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Oh yeah, they have real coffee there.
Keith Laakkonen. Yeah, and chocolate-covered coffee beans is like a national thing down there.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Oh yeah. Yeah. Have you ever been?
Keith Laakkonen. We went, my wife and I went for our honeymoon. I was not a birder, yet. And so I really regret missing a lot of stuff, but it's an amazing country. The people are wonderful. The sights are amazing. The food is incredible, and it's really Costa Rica can say it's pure vita, pure life. And so it's a really neat place. And so can't wait to see, there's potential 500 lifers for me of birders, birds down there. How many? 500 life species I could potentially see. I doubt I'll see 500. I'll be happy with 300.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Merlin is the name of the app? Merlin's name of the app. All right, because my wife and I, when we walked through the neighborhood, there's a couple of birds that sing to us that just seems like they're on cue, and always standing at the top of a tree branch there. I never knew I could do that. That's really cool that I could play the, record the audio.
Keith Laakkonen. It's very, very, very accurate. I had a bird fly over me, and it was calling last year I was on the boardwalk. And it was a call I didn't readily recognize. And I put, I had Merlin play, and it was a Kentucky warbler. It was a call I'd never heard from a Kentucky warbler. So that was a new call to me, because a lot of these warblers don't necessarily sing or call down here when they're moving through. And so that's the first time I'd ever heard that. So it wasn't from Merlin. I would not have, because I saw the bird is yellow, but I couldn't pull the trigger on what it was until Merlin's like, yeah, that's what that was for the call. So it's pretty cool.
Robert DiLella Jr.. What's something people should know about Corkscrew?
Keith Laakkonen. Right now I think is very transformative time for Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary. We're in this big watershed restoration project, Corkscrew Watershed Initiative. We're also in the middle of this $20 million capital campaign. We're just shy of $17 million. And we have all our state- You got three to go. Yeah, I got three to go. Got all the state permits in hand. Should have county approval any day. We've been working with a very talented team of architects, engineers, consultants. We're bringing on our general contractor now. And so we're getting ready for building permits and we are gonna be breaking ground this summer.
Keith Laakkonen. And what that is gonna do is, so for 72 years, we've been putting all our money into the resource, right? To the point where we don't have a laboratory. Our laboratory is a couple tables and a couple of microscopes in a rented office trailer. So it's hard for us to really do our kind of work. Our dormitory is Actually, it's called the Gator Hole. And it looks like it sounds. It totally does. If you're in your 20s, you really don't care, but we need to be able to have spaces that Actually allows us to grow our capacity, have an outdoor classroom. So we're gonna have these buildings, dormitories, new laboratory space Office space.
Keith Laakkonen. We can actually get there and collaborate with others, new meeting spaces that we don't have. This outdoor classroom, which will be great. So the kids can come in there in the winter when the weather's nice, you can open it up. And the summer you close it up, it'd be air conditioned. And so it'll be a really transformative project, about 30,000 square foot. And so this Is an amazing project. And I'm thrilled to be here at Corkscrew while this is happening. It's actually one of the reasons it took the job.
Robert DiLella Jr.. That's exciting. It's awesome for, it's our own form of Disney World in our own backyard in a way that we really need more of that than digital enhancement.
Keith Laakkonen. Yeah, and so one of the big things with us is that Like Rookery Bay, what you wanna have is you wanna have a research facility onsite with dormitories. And so if you have a visiting researcher coming down I love our Naples hotels, but if you have a grant from the National Science Foundation, you probably don't wanna spend 350 bucks a night in Naples. So they're gonna stay in our dormitories. Oh, great. They'll do research work in our laboratory. And then when they publish and share that research, we will have support of that work. And that means us taking them out in the field on these equipment to be able to work in these pristine ecosystems.
Keith Laakkonen. And so it's really an investment for all of Southwest Florida. That's awesome. We definitely sorely need, and it's just an exciting time. Our local architect, David Corbin, he's done several nonprofit capital campaigns. And so the building designs are very inspired, very Florida. We're keeping it very Florida, very sustainable.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Are there renderings of it on the website?
Keith Laakkonen. Yeah, we do have renderings of it.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Okay, so we can pop that in. Yeah.
Keith Laakkonen. Solar powered. We are aiming for LEED certification, and that's basically a green building certification of gold at this point. And then sustainable. Something that, of course, we talked about hurricanes, but need to have a building where basically when a hurricane comes, I just wanna turn on the key, lock the door, and walk away. So it'll be resilient. It'll be built above the floodplain. And it's also being built in the areas that have been disturbed at Corkscrew. So if you've been there for 72 years, you've had sheds go up, sheds go down. Parking areas come in, parking areas go out. So all the areas we're building in are already disturbed.
Keith Laakkonen. And so we're not touching a single inch of wetlands, and we designed it very intentionally so we wouldn't do that. And so it's gonna be a net benefit for everybody, and it's just gonna be an amazing place. And so that'll be starting this summer. And so hopefully 12 to 18 months for construction, and it's a really exciting and a little bit scary time.
Robert DiLella Jr.. So like early 28? Should be hoping, yeah.
Keith Laakkonen. Yeah, let's hope everything works out. We don't have any storms or any other Emergencies or anything else come up. But it's really exciting. And when I was considering applying for Corkscrew, somebody showed me this capital campaign that scared me. Professionally, anytime I've been professionally scared, I've done it. If something scares me, I'd go for it. And so yeah, we have donors who've just been supporting us. This thing actually started in the fall of 2019. In hindsight, how would you know what would happen in the next 12 months in 2019, right? So yeah, so we're getting very close to the finish line.
Keith Laakkonen. We've actually, it's so important for South of Florida, the state of Florida actually invested $5 million into it. So we got an appropriation sponsored by Senator Passadomo and Representative Mello, who do a great job for us here in Collier County. And so that appropriation is actually helping us build some of these buildings. And so it's absolutely incredible that we're able to work with the state of Florida supporting that, supporting what we do.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Excellent, I'm really looking forward to it. Appreciate what you're doing.
Keith Laakkonen. Yeah, thank you, yeah, me too. I can't wait.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Whatever we can do as a business to support you if you have fundraisers or anything that you do, or you wanna acknowledge people. We can give you gift bags or anything like that.
Keith Laakkonen. Definitely we'll take you up on that. Please. Because yeah, as, fundraising is a challenge. And People, because people think we're way out there. Well, we're not way out there anymore. Not anymore.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Town is coming to Naples. No, we're creeping up on you.
Keith Laakkonen. And I think it's an amazing opportunity. I mean, we've been part of this community for 72 years. And so Yeah, so when you raise funds, we're putting those funds right back to work into our community, into the ecosystem, into education. And we've got 3000 kids a year coming through, Corkscrew, and we've got 80,000 visitors a year. These people are visiting to see this amazing place. And some of these kids have never been to Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary. So we love being able to be inclusive and have lots just opportunities for the public and kids. And I think that's the other big part of the capital campaign is being able to expand what we do for our education programs too.
Keith Laakkonen. And so it's a very, like I said, exciting time.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Well, thank you for doing what you do. Thank you for the heart. And thank you for your passion and what you do. Because I think it opens up a lot for us in our community. It's something that we need.
Keith Laakkonen. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, it's Having worked for government, my whole, and my Mother said, the whole family was like firefighters and cops,. I always consider working in the government as public service. And I kind of consider what I do now is kind of public service too. 100%. Yeah, and I'm a biologist, but I mean, what we're doing is for the community, and what everybody's doing out at Corkscrew.
Keith Laakkonen. And, all the folks in my field out there, whether the state park or national park or national wildlife refuge, it's truly something that we're protecting for our community in Collier County, where we're really lucky in South of Florida too, that there's, so much land set aside for conservation., we always, we always hope we can do more, but I think we're doing pretty well overall.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Yeah, for sure. My final question. What do you love about your life?
Keith Laakkonen. That's I'm trying to think about that one. I love my job. I love what I'm doing. I think I'm in a really good place in life. I'm just happy where I am right now. Happy to, have adventures with my wife. We're going to go to Costa Rica a couple of years. We're looking to go to New Zealand, so getting to that stage in life where I think, I'm in my fifties now, which I never thought I would be in my fifties. That just happened to other people. And so I think I'm more appreciative of where I am and where I'm going, and so, yeah, that's what I like about it right now. And I'm actually planning for retirement, which I never thought would happen.
Keith Laakkonen. I've got more years behind me than in front of me. So I, just being in, being a Floridian born and raised in south of sword and being able to, continue to give back and just be in this amazing place. And so, yeah, I mean, I'm so thrilled to have the opportunity to talk to you. This is Fun. I've never, never really thought about some of this stuff, but Yeah, I mean, there's, there's lots of good stuff going on, try to, try to, have fun, but also work hard and, try to not be, not take everything too seriously.
Robert DiLella Jr.. That's been great. I really, it's, what's it's so infectious about is your passion for what you do and to see that for all the years you've been doing it and to see it just as fresh as if you just were day one. So it's really inspiring to see.
Keith Laakkonen. Thank you. I appreciate that. Thank you so much. Well, thank you for doing this for the community. I think this is, this is, this is great., thrilled to be here.
Robert DiLella Jr.. So thank you for the opportunity. Absolutely. We're blessed. We live in paradise.
Keith Laakkonen. Yeah, we do. We definitely do.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Celebrate the good in that. Definitely. Thanks Zach. You got a good one here. Thank you.
Keith Laakkonen. Thank you, sir.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Appreciate you. Thank you. Yeah, absolutely.