An ongoing red tide is killing wildlife throughout Florida’s southwest coast and has left beaches littered with dead fish, sea turtles, manatees and a whale shark. Additional footage courtesy of Southwest Florida TV via Facebook.
FLORIDA
Dead fish, birds, manatees, even a whale shark. Toll from worst red tide in decade grows.
Florida’s southwest coast, a ribbon of inlets and barrier islands normally brimming with wildlife, has become a red tide slaughterhouse this summer.
Dead fish by the thousands have clogged inlets and canals. Since Sunday, 10 dead Goliath grouper, the massive reef fish that can live four decades or more, have floated to the surface. At least 90 sea turtles have been found stranded as the tide stretches well into nesting season. And Tuesday, as hundreds of…
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Exposing the Big Game 
This has been scary to read about. I hope it is another wakeup call for people – algae blooms are caused by fertilizer and pollution runoff, and this red tide is the reason we can never be confident in ‘managed numbers’ of wildlife, because as arrogant as we are, we really cannot predict natural disasters that will affect them such as this one, and the ones that are caused by us and in our control to remedy we ignore.
Good point, and red tide is caused by a lack of oxtgen in the ecean which can be another result of global warming.
Between this, the plastics, oil spills, sonar testing and drilling for energy, it’s a sad prospect to have to witness.