It takes a scalpel to save Rattlesnake Key

Rattlesnake Key, south of the Sunshine Skyway, reachable only by boat, is about 700 acres of mangroves and tidal flats beside the Terra Ceia Aquatic Preserve. Its shallows shelter the young snook, redfish, and tarpon that sustain our fisheries and made my childhood magical.

Nearby Bird Island is, in the state’s words, “one of the top two rookeries in Florida.” Steven Murawski, a University of South Florida marine biologist whose team has tested hundreds of fish across Tampa Bay for “forever chemicals” and other contaminants, found the waters around Rattlesnake Key among the most pristine in the entire Tampa Bay region.

This year we nearly lost this coastline. In January, SSA Marine, a global port operator backed by Wall Street’s Blackstone, proposed a cruise terminal on the neighboring Knott-Cowen tract. It would have required dredging a 4.5-mile channel, 60 feet deep, through Terra Ceia Bay for the world’s largest cruise ships. Nearly 19,000 area residents signed a petition. Hundreds rallied at Seabreeze Park. Sen. Jim Boyd wrote a ban on that dredging, and Gov. Ron DeSantis signed it.

That was government working: citizens spoke, and officials answered. But the law stopped a dredge. It didn’t buy the land. It still allows “minimum dredging” for marinas, with no public notice required, which one land use attorney warned could open the way to a “substantial” commercial marina. That’s a loophole you could drive a cruise ship through.

The state’s own plan warns, “Growth pressures are intense, so endangerment is high.” That’s why Florida has had Terra Ceia’s natural treasures on its conservation buying list since 1996. The Legislature set aside money to buy Rattlesnake Key in 2022 and again in 2024, and the federal government signaled its support with a half-million-dollar grant to the state for the purchase. Manatee County pledged money, too.

Thirty years of plans, appraisals, and appropriations. Still not protected. Why? Because of the gap between the state’s appraised value of this pristine land and what it could bring on the private market. The state appraised the island at $7.6 million; a private buyer paid $18 million in 2025.

How do we bridge the gap?

Every level of government holds one piece of the solution, and no one is in charge of putting the pieces together. The Scalpel Plan I’ve endorsed rests on a simple idea: act on problems already found instead of ordering another study. Rattlesnake Key has been found. Here’s how we fix it.

Since September 2025, an Interior Department order has allowed the federal Land and Water Conservation Fund to buy land only inside an existing wildlife refuge boundary. Neither parcel is inside one, so the first bill I file will add Rattlesnake Key and Knott-Cowen to the Tampa Bay National Wildlife Refuges, alongside Passage Key.

As Murawski notes, Theodore Roosevelt set aside part of lower Tampa Bay in 1905 as one of the nation’s first wildlife refuges, after plume hunters had decimated its egret rookeries. “We have the opportunity now to build on Roosevelt’s legacy,” he says, “by expanding protections to one of the last undisturbed wild places in Tampa Bay.”

The bill will guarantee public fishing and boating access in law, and it will buy only from willing sellers. Cheryl Kelley (Stoehr), former director of budget and management at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, puts it simply: “Drawing a line on a map costs the Treasury nothing. And it unlocks every federal dollar that follows.”

Locally, Manatee County has protected nearly 2,500 acres since 2020, more than half through partnerships with the state, and November’s bond referendum will shape what comes next.

In Tallahassee, a fresh, credible appraisal must weigh that $18 million sale. Florida law lets a state-local partnership pay up to 150 percent of the approved value. A higher price goes to the governor and Cabinet for a decision. The next governor can make Terra Ceia a priority, and the Legislature can close the marina loophole.

In Washington, that’s my job. Owners deserve fair value, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is the key partner in paying it. It runs coastal wetlands grants, paid for by taxes boaters and anglers already pay on fuel and gear. With the governor’s and county’s consent, now required, it can buy land from willing sellers for national wildlife refuges, using duck stamp revenue and a share of the $900 million a year the Land and Water Conservation Fund draws from offshore oil and gas. Once both parcels are inside the refuge boundary, those dollars can flow.

It’s the same method the Scalpel Plan applies to federal spending: get everyone working from one plan. Here that means federal, state, and local agencies, the owners, and the anglers, kayakers, birders, and Waterkeepers who led this fight.

Protection doesn’t have to mean a locked gate. Federal refuge law already treats fishing and wildlife watching as priority uses. The goal is to preserve what has always happened on these waters, such as recreational fishing, kayaking, and bird watching, with the people who use them helping decide what protection looks like.

I’ve seen this work. In the 1980s, my father, Kerry Kirschner, helped establish the Sarasota Bay Estuary Program, which brought federal, state, and local governments together with scientists and residents to restore our bay. A relative of mine makes a living as a commercial fisherman. For my family, clean water has never been abstract.

If one funding source falls short, we’ll find another. I won’t declare victory when a bill passes, or a grant is filed. I’ll keep working until there’s a signed agreement and permanent protection is in place.

We stopped the dredge, together. Now let’s preserve this pristine coastline, together.

Kelly Kirschner, a former City Commissioner and Mayor of Sarasota, is a candidate for Congress in Florida’s 16th District.