By Dan Klepal
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Emily Argo of Cheviot is presumed dead in a plane crash off Florida.

Emily Argo's life may have ended Sunday pursuing her life's passion - working to save some of the world's most endangered animals.

Argo, a 25-year-old Cheviot native and a biologist who was studying the migrating habits of the Northern Right Whale, is presumed dead after her twin-engine plane went down in the Atlantic Ocean, about eight miles off the Florida coast. She was one of four people in the plane - the pilot and three researchers working on the whale-spotting project for the non-profit Wildlife Trust, where Argo worked as a project coordinator.

U.S. Coast Guard officials called off rescue efforts late Monday but did not make that decision public until Tuesday. They recovered the body of one of the researchers, 47-year-old Jackie Ciano of Massachusetts, floating in the water. The Coast Guard also found some debris, but did not find the plane.

Dana Warr, a Coast Guard spokesman, said a distress call was picked up by the agency's Miami office at about 6:30 p.m. Sunday. About three hours later, Coast Guard officials found an uninflated life raft, camera equipment and film canisters within a half-mile of the distress call. Warr said they tried to use sonar equipment to find survivors Monday, but seas were too rough for it to work.

The search covered some 400 square miles, and used boats, planes, helicopters and divers.

The effort shifted from rescue to recovery Tuesday, without success. The Nassau County Sheriff's Office sent out divers and a group of charter boat captains volunteered to search for debris off Fernandina Beach, just north of Jacksonville.

In addition to Argo, researcher Michael Newcomer, 49, of Los Altos, Calif., and pilot Tom Hinds of Fernandina Beach are still missing.

Northern Right Whales are notoriously slow-moving animals, and were hunted to near extinction by the turn of the 20th Century. It still is one of the most endangered creatures on Earth, with only about 300 known survivors in the wild. The purpose of the whale-spotting program is to count the whales, and to trace their migration patterns so the Coast Guard and state officials can keep military and merchant vessels out of their paths.

Karen Argo, Emily's mother, said family vacations to St. Petersburg Beach hooked her daughter on marine biology at an early age. Emily Argo also worked to help save endangered manatees for Wildlife Trust in Florida.

A valedictorian and 1995 graduate of Taylor High School, Argo expressed concern about her life after college in an Enquirer interview just before graduation.

"I just fear that I'll graduate with no job," a then 17-year-old Argo said. "The whole world is changing, and there's a lot more competition among countries."

As it turned out, she didn't have to worry about a thing.

After a distinguished career at Ohio Northern University, where she made the dean's list and was inducted into the Beta Beta Beta biology honorary, Argo graduated with degrees in biology and environmental science in 1999. She had an internship with Wildlife Trust during college, before being hired by the agency after graduation.

"We all knew they would hire her after the internship," Mrs. Argo said. "It was a difficult decision for her to leave Ohio. It took her a long way from her family and friends. But it was her dream, and she had to do it."

Mary Pearl, president of Wildlife Trust, said Argo was a "rising star in conservation."

"It's very unusual for someone who is only 25 to be given the responsibility for day-to-day coordination for a project like this," Pearl said. "She was so confident and so enthusiastic. She was an inspiration and a shining star ... a fabulous young woman."

The plane being used for the whale-spotting project was a 1969 Cessna Super Skymaster, which had taken off from St. Simons Island and was scheduled to return there by 6:30 p.m. Sunday. The plane refueled at 2:30 p.m. at the Fernandina Beach airport, and radioed a sighting of three whales about 5 miles off the coast just before 3 p.m.

E-mail dklepal@enquirer.com