Audubon Florida introduced its annual statewide awards to seven conservation leaders at its annual Meeting occasion on October 16-18, 2025. Since 1999, Audubon Florida has gathered its employees, members, companions, and different stakeholders for a celebration of the 12 months’s accomplishments, a glance forward at coming priorities, and a recognition of the leaders making a distinction for Florida’s pure sources.
Theodore Roosevelt Award: Senate President Kathleen Passidomo (R-Naples)
This recognition is given yearly to a decisionmaker demonstrating management, resolve, and braveness on behalf of Florida’s surroundings. Throughout her legislative tenure, Passidomo has been a champion for wetlands safety, sensible development administration, conservation lands, and Florida’s award-winning state parks, amongst many different important conservation priorities. She has additionally been an unparalleled advocate for Audubon’s Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary, working to make sure that this distinctive ecosystem continues to thrive for generations to come back.
“All through her legislative profession, Senator Passidomo has proven that conservation and good governance go hand in hand,” stated Audubon Florida’s Senior Director of Coverage Beth Alvi. “Her enduring legacy would be the particular locations she has protected and defended for future generations.”
Philanthropist of the Yr Award: Winter Park Servant-Chief Linda Sitek
This recognition is given to a person or group in appreciation of their catalytic philanthropy, elevating Audubon’s work in Florida. Winter Park philanthropist Linda Sitek has been a devoted supporter of Audubon and the Audubon Heart for Birds of Prey in Maitland since rescuing a trio of younger barred owls together with her husband, after they fell from their nest. The owlets have been rushed to Audubon’s Heart for Birds of Prey the place they have been rehabilitated and in the end returned efficiently to their house nest. Sitek’s mother and father instilled in her a humanitarian ethic and worth for servant management at an early age.
“Linda’s service on the Heart for Birds of Prey advisory board has been invaluable,” stated Heart for Birds of Prey Director Katie Gill-Warner. “She is a connector, broadening Audubon’s wingspan in Central Florida and introducing our work to new audiences.”
Man Bradley Award: Tampa-area State Park Biologist Daniel Larremore
This award acknowledges a person for stewardship of imperiled species within the face of threats to birds and their habitats, and is known as for Florida’s first wildlife warden, Audubon’s Man Bradley, who was killed in 1905 whereas implementing new protections for imperiled wading birds. Florida State Park Biologist Daniel Larremore was acknowledged this 12 months for a profession devoted to the safety of Florida’s shorebirds, seabirds and their habitats at state parks within the Tampa Bay area. For twenty years, Larremore’s work at Tampa Bay’s Honeymoon Island State Park, Caladesi Island State Park, Three Rooker Bar, and extra have safeguarded the nesting and wintering habitat of among the hemisphere’s rarest and declining coastal birds. He was a necessary companion within the improvement of public-private partnership efforts to make use of volunteer chook stewards to guard the birds from leisure disturbance, a mannequin that has since been replicated across the nation.
“These park seashores are among the most crucial within the state for uncommon species like Least Terns, Black Skimmers, American Oystercatchers, and extra,” stated Kara Durda, Audubon’s Tampa Bay Shorebird Program Supervisor. “His onerous work and creativity on behalf of Florida’s pure sources have actually resulted within the profitable nesting of tens of 1000’s of shorebirds and seabirds, and the safety of one in all Florida’s most iconic landscapes.”
Champion of the Everglades: The Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida
This award is given for management on behalf of the Everglades and its iconic wildlife. This 12 months, Audubon proudly acknowledged the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida for his or her partnership within the conservation of the Everglades’ Cape Sable Seaside Sparrow. The sparrow’s inhabitants has dwindled as a consequence of habitat loss and is now additional endangered by sea stage rise. Recognizing the urgency of the state of affairs, the Miccosukee Tribe, Audubon, and conservation companions joined forces to safe state sources and advocate for a federal appropriations request to launch a conservation breeding program, modeled after the profitable, ongoing effort to recuperate the Florida Grasshopper Sparrow. Chairman Talbert Cypress accepted the award on behalf of the Tribe.
“The Tribe’s management and dedication have been important to advancing conservation methods that honor each ecological restoration and cultural resilience,” stated Julie Wraithmell, Govt Director of Audubon Florida, “making certain that this uncommon chook and the Everglades ecosystem it relies upon upon have an opportunity to recuperate and thrive for generations to come back.”
Florida’s Particular Locations Award: State Consultant Lindsay Cross (D-St. Petersburg)
This annual award is introduced to a person who has made a distinction for the landscapes and habitats that make Florida particular. This 12 months, Audubon honored Consultant Lindsay Cross for her imaginative and prescient, persistence, and unwavering dedication to safeguarding the wetlands, coasts, and wild locations that make Florida so particular. A scientist by coaching and an advocate at coronary heart, Consultant Cross has spent her profession working to guard Florida’s lands and waters — from her years main coastal and watershed applications in Tampa Bay to her sturdy environmental management within the Florida Legislature.
“Consultant Cross constantly brings each conservation experience and empathy to her work within the Legislature, constructing bridges between communities, science, and coverage to talk for Florida’s surroundings,” stated Audubon Florida’s Senior Director of Coverage Beth Alvi.
Audubon Regulation Enforcement Officer of the Yr Award: FWC Senior Officer Dennis Palmer
Audubon’s Regulation Enforcement Officer of the Yr Award is given to an officer who units an instance of defending Florida’s imperiled wildlife that’s greater than a job, however an ethical obligation. This 12 months’s honoree was Senior Officer Dennis Palmer of the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Fee, who recurrently patrols Bay County’s Tyndall Vital Wildlife Space, a breeding space for 5 species of imperiled seashore nesting birds. As a result of the birds and their nests are camouflaged, beachgoers typically ignore signage and unwittingly get too shut, inflicting the loss of life of eggs and helpless chicks. Palmer has been instrumental to the success of Tyndall’s nesting birds and a useful companion to the biologists who work on website. For a number of years, he spent his vacation weekends, each Memorial and Independence days, patrolling the realm to maintain each the general public and wildlife secure, all of the whereas coordinating with biologists.
“Senior Officer Palmer cares deeply about this particular place and its wildlife, and his engagement with the general public is commonly the distinction between life and loss of life for these uncommon and declining species,” stated Col Lauzau, Audubon’s Panhandle Shorebird Program Supervisor. “He goes the additional mile each time for wildlife and is a credit score to his company and the folks of Florida.”
Audubon Volunteer of the Yr Award: Central Florida’s Robert Veal
This award acknowledges one in all Audubon’s greater than 1,500 volunteers in Florida, who assist important group science applications, habitat safety and restoration initiatives, and the necessary work of Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary and Audubon’s Heart for Birds of Prey. This 12 months’s award acknowledged Robert Veal, who since 2006 has donated greater than 15,000 volunteer hours to the Audubon Heart for Birds of Prey in Maitland. Veal first joined the flock as an EagleWatcher, watching a nest close to his home. He then visited the Heart and determined he needed to be part of the Heart group. Robert began as a cleaner open air, however has held many volunteer positions on the Heart, together with as a clinic assistant, docent, volunteer electrician, volunteer coach, eagle wrangler, and extra. He may be reliably discovered on the Heart a number of days per week and is all the time pleased to assist out with no matter job is required: He cuts up meals for sufferers, scrubs poop, wraps injured wings, replaces lightbulbs, and talks to company.
“One of the crucial particular issues about Robert is the friendship he has with Francis, an aged ambassador Bald Eagle,” stated Heart for Birds of Prey Director Katie Gill-Warner. “As an imprinted eagle in his 30s, Francis doesn’t like many individuals; nevertheless, he has been finest associates with Veal for almost 20 years.”
With a theme of “Energy of Birds, Energy of Us: Science and Pleasure as Catalysts for Conservation,” Audubon Florida’s 2025 Meeting was attended by greater than 250 conservationists and citizen advocates from across the state. Discover extra details about Audubon’s important conservation work at audubon.org/florida
