The Manatee Rehab Partnership truck was broken into and
equipment was stolen:
Our truck was broken
into while parked in the Holiday Inn Express in Florida City Thursday
night. It was parked in a well light area and even angled so the entire
truck could be viewed from the hotel. Obviously this did not help.
What makes it even more frustrating is we were not in the normal hotel we
stay at when we are in the south Florida area. Our normal hotel was
booked.
Anyhow, the burglars smashed in the window and took all of
our tracking boxes which contained VHF and sonic receivers,
headphones, hand held GPS units, binoculars, refractometers, thermometers
and of course the good camera with all its goodies. The police eventually
took prints off the truck but they were not optimistic in the recovery of the
equipment. One police officer indicated there is a group
that breaks into vehicles with boats in tow in search of fishing
equipment to eventually pawn.
We are currently awaiting to see if the Florida office
insurance will cover replacement cost for the items stolen. Something
many of us did not know, vehicle insurance only covers the vehicle and the
damage it received. Vehicle insurance does not cover personal
items stolen from a vehicle. But you can file for replacement of personal
items through you home owners or work insurance. Until we can get
replacement equipment in hand, we will hopefully be borrowing equipment from
FWC.
On a positive note, a small belted animal was seen at
the Card Sound Bridge by DERM during their aerial survey but we were not able to
locate the animal after they had to go back for gas and then get grounded due to
mechanical difficulties. We now have one of our listening buoys at Alabama
Jack's and hope to pick up the signal soon. We
were able to recover some of the equipment that had gone on sale on Ebay but
much of it was lost. The MRP
received a generous donation of $10,000 to pay for the purchase of new
equipment.