Environmental Restoration Meets Geocaching

The Department’s Northwest District is getting in on the worldwide Geocaching craze. Geocaching is a fun and entertaining game that takes participants outdoors and by using a handheld Global Positioning System (GPS) tracks the location of hidden containers filled with surprises. District staff took advantage of the popular game to reach a high-tech audience while raising awareness about local ongoing environmental restoration efforts. Beginning as an Earth Day 2008 project, the District established a geocaching location at the national award winning restoration project, Project GreenShores, located on Pensacola Bay.

When treasure seekers who download the GreenShores GPS coordinates from the home site, www.geocaching.com, look for clues leading to the location of the elusive cache, they will also find a narrative about the community restoration site and links to additional environmental information. The Project GreenShores cache includes trading cards that identify wildlife that live in and visit the site and provide a pictorial and description of the featured creature along with the District’s Web address.

A special “travel bug” is also included in the hidden, water-tight container at the ProjectGreenshores cache site. The travel bug is a tracking tag that the finder is encouraged to remove and deposit at another cache location. Tracking tags are numbered and the finder registers the number online which automatically updates the tracking map for the tagged item. The specific “bug” at the ProjectGreenshores site has been attached to a trading card about the American Oystercatcher and invites the finder to take the tag to another geocaching location within the birds’ habitat and migration route.

Within 45 minutes of the Project GreenShores geocaching site going live, a first time visitor discovered the cache and posted comments to the home site. Since that time, others who have visited the site have provided comments such as, “Good afternoon to go for a bike ride and look for this cache. Have watched this project from the beginning and fun to see it developing. TN (took nothing), L (left) little blue turtle & fish sticker, & SL (signed log). Thanks FDEP for the hide.”

This innovative application of an adventure game is yet another way that DEP is taking environmental education and awareness to the public. The Northwest District has other cache locations and tokens in the works to entice and promote new visitors to more locations that feature the treasured natural resources and restoration efforts underway in the Florida panhandle.

**Last minute update: the Oystercatcher travel bug, fondly nicknamed Hotsauce by District staff, was found and is now resting in a new cache location.