Red Tide - Death Comes to Gasparilla Island Florida

[aprilingverizon]

My question is, why have they not cleaned up the beach yet? We just went there on the 7th and the dead fish were left rotting. Why isn't the city cleaning that up???

[CrypticCRICKET]

@aprilingverizon: I think the policy is that it has to pose a health risk for a cleanup. Probably because cleaning it up would cost a lot of money. Sarasota and Collier counties clean up fish kills from their beaches.

The goose that lays the golden eggs is dying a death of 1000 cuts.

[Mercuryverado200]

I freakin hate red tide. a lot of it is due to all the crap that gets washed into the ocean then with high heat... cant believe how many reds died. so sad

[cherry420x]

We have the same here happening. Georgian Bay Ontario Canada. Dead fish and birds all over the shore line.

[CrypticCRICKET]

@cherry420x Do you have fish and seabird kills often up there?

[cherry420x]

@CrypticCRICKET From an artical I read it happened about 10 years ago. There are 6k-10k birds and fish dead,mostly birds... from Wasaga Beach to Parry Sound, about a 3 kilometre stretch and the governement is blaming it on the birds eating fish that have botulism, due to a hot summer, but they are still doing test, they have said that this might go on for another month.

[CrypticCRICKET]

@cherry420x Interesting. I just googled up an article about it. I wasn't aware that live fish carried butulism. I guess they do but it's mostly dormant until they die. Sounds like it has only been a problem a few other times in years past.

Not good that the lower end of the food chain is being shaken like this.

[MyTbradley]

Gosh this is just horrific !!!!

[cherrypie11061]

This makes me feel so angry seeing all this death of our wildlife

[theoriginalwah]

I don't know anything about this apart from what I just read so this may sound silly, but if you caught one of these affected fish before it died, could you eat it?

[CrypticCRICKET]

@theoriginalwah I don't know if eating these fish would cause a human to get sick. I've read that dolphins and birds have gotten sick from eating fish dying from red tide toxins. I've watched dolphins feed on schools of baitfish that were dying from red tide toxins so I know that they'll do it. Turtles die from red tide. Not certain if it's from eating critters or just breathing it. When a red tide bloom is bad, As a human it's actually pretty hard to breath because of the lung iritation.

[CrypticCRICKET]

@theoriginalwah I've been present as a red tide bloom get's pushed up against the beach by the tide and I've watched what happens to the fish. They become disoriented and start spinning in circles as they swim. They eventually stop swimming (wihin a few minutes) and sink to the bottom dead. I've watched marine crabs crawl up onto land to get away from the red tide and then they weaken and die because they can't live out of the water.

[cameracam315rv]

wow heard about the red tide, it ashame

[CrypticCRICKET]

@cameracam315rv Yup, it's very sad to see the really big Redfish rotting out on the beach. Those big fish produce lot's of offspring every year. They're the future of our fish stocks. The smaller reef fish are vital food sources for the bigger reef fish, Regulation of recreational and commercial harvest is pretty tight already here in Florida. Some species like Snook are closed to harvest year round. Others like grouper and snapper or Redfish have very limited open seasons or harvest allowances.

[TheSunergizer]

As I understand it, the red tide is caused by farmers who over nitrate their fields. When the fresh water run off hits the ocean, instant algae bloom.

[CrypticCRICKET]

@TheSunergizer It's my understanding that K.Brevis doesn't eat nitrates as one would put on their crops or lawns. It's my understanding that K.Brevis eats decaying biomass like the dying forms of other algae which do feed on nitrates. In my previous videos I was fishing in the back bay area on the opposite side of the island that this beach is on. The water quality back there had a lot of suspended solids in it. The water back there had a lot of freshwater run off in it.

[CrypticCRICKET]

@TheSunergizer Nitrates create other algae blooms and dying algae blooms are food for K.Brevis. That's my understanding.

Now I have my fingers crossed that the suspended solids and the algae feeding on them in the back bay areas, don't become food for the K.Brevis algae that are present now, thereby causing the multiplication and growh of the K.Brevis algae into a lethal level bloom in the estuaries.

It's happened before and fish populations in our area have declined as a result.