Join Tampa Bay Watch and Audubon Florida for the 28th Annual Fishing Line Island Cleanup. 

The goal is to remove hazardous monofilament line from mangrove shorelines. Monofilament or “mono,” is a fancy word for the commonly used plastic fishing line. It has great fishing utility, but can take over 600 years to break down and poses serious threats to birds and other wildlife. Improperly discarded mono and fishing gear leads to wildlife entanglement, accidental hooks, and ingestion.

This will be a do-it-yourself event, where participants will travel out to their designated location by personal boat/other watercraft any day between October 4th - October 18th to target shorelines where cast line has been caught in the treeline. Volunteers will compile the recovered monofilament, to be collected, cleaned and recycled.

There are a variety of sites, all critical bird nesting habitat, throughout Pinellas, Hillsborough, and Manatee. Click here to view the map of the predetermined site locations. 

If you want to join us for this event:

We recommend the use of shallow draft vessels for close access to the islands and that you choose a waterway you navigate frequently.

1. Check availability and fill out your name for the specific site location here first. This is first-come first-served, so if a space is already filled in, please choose a different location. We are only taking one group per site. Only the captain or group leader needs to fill in their name.

2. Register below on this webpage. This ensures we have your contact information to send all final details and confirm your designated site.

If you do not fill out both, we will not have a way to confirm sites and get in contact with you, and therefore, will open back up the site location to other interested parties.

Please only register for one site, per person or group. There is no requirement for group size. Although, we do recommend you work together in a group. We will contact all registered participants in the upcoming two weeks with all pertinent information.