WATER QUALITY REPORT FOR DEC. 15, 2024
Health advisories have been issued by one or more of the six Gulf of Mexico-front, county-level offices of the Florida Department of Health from Tampa Bay south to the Florida Keys with regularity due to hundreds of water quality samples showing the seas are increasing in numbers of organisms that cause red tide.
Enough of those organisms show up and red tide blooms. And the blooms suck all the oxygen out of the water, which leaves none for the bait fish. So the bait fish suffocate, wash up on the beach and often we have the makings of a red tide.
“I was out on the water yesterday, and I didn't notice red tide. And I didn’t see any dead fish,” Dave Tomasko, director of the Sarasota Bay National Estuary Program, said late last week. “I’m in pretty good contact with a lot of recreational fishing guides who let me know if they see any signs of the red tide, so I don’t think we have anything overly concerning right now.”
How odd.
Never before have I reported on hundreds and hundreds of positive red tide samples in the same geographical regions without any upset noted by the typical marine types who understandably get frustrated when red tide shows up to mess with their livelihoods.
However, I now know why, thanks to an offhand but insightful comment by Matt DePaolis, the Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation’s environmental policy director.
For anyone unfamiliar with the locations of offshore fishing opportunities to the west of the Florida Penisula, there are plenty, but two are especially beloved.
The Florida Middle Grounds, which would be a haul for a boat leaving from, say, a marina in Lee County, are absolutely awesome. The Middle Grounds are about 70-100 miles offshore northwest of Tampa Bay and cover roughly 460 square miles of the West Florida Continental Shelf.
The Middle Grounds consist of a series of ridges and banks that run parallel to the northwest shelf off the coast of West Florida. These ridges are up to 40 miles long, 10 miles wide, and with fish tucked in along banks, ridges, and trenches from 30 to 150 feet deep.
I caught the largest grouper of my life there, as well as the largest of four or five other species when I worked as a mate’s mate on a large party fishing boat from Clearwater Beach. I was 14 years old, and life was salty.
Safe to say that even with the creature comforts built into today's luxury fishing vessels, those sleek beauties with three or four outboard engines, only the hardiest setting out of the Caloosahatchee River would program their navigation equipment to the Middle Grounds.
They’d aim for a similar region to the west-southwest of Fort Myers, an area not nearly as far away from land.
The same type of fishing. Same depths. Far closer.
So begins the 'Mystery of the Dead Live Bait.'
Codty Pierce, the Calusa Waterkeeper, told me several anglers heading offshore on that route from the Lee County area showed him videos of a live well full of dead bait when they arrived at their fishing holes.
Pinfish, pilchards, blue runners, jumbo shrimp, and threadfin herring are bait that's hard to catch enough of and expensive to buy enough of — if a tackle shop even has them in stock on any in a given morning. Anglers who are live bait aficionados believe in happy swimmers for successful offshore angling.
Some live bait systems operate in a closed system, and those baits were fine. Other systems keep the baits alive and perky by scooping up saltwater as the boat moves forward while flushing out the older water.
Despite the organism that can create a full-blown red tide showing up nearly everywhere along the beaches and in the bays along Southwest Florida in water quality testing lately, it's not yet in enough quantities to bloom.
Offshore, however, the red tide sampling maps I look at every week have had big red blobs out in the Gulf of Mexico – lots of red tide means big red blobs on a map. Makes sense.
Research shows that some, if not all, of the organisms that can cause a red tide originate from the offshore depths. Sometimes the organisms make their way to the beaches, bloom, and then we all know it.
Or it stays concentrated offshore while enough gets carried inshore to test high, like now.
Anglers on their way offshore lately told Pierce that at about 8 miles from shores, they encountered a full-bloom red tide and either blew right through it because they thought no harm would befall their baits as the shape of the red tide was "thin" east-to-west and far longer south-to-north. Others even closed the intakes on the flushing system before doing so. Didn't matter. When the organism that causes red tide blooms, it uses up the oxygen in that swath of water and enough pushes its way in to suffocate all the bait fish.
Anglers excited to get fishing after running full throttle for quite some time arrive at their perfect fishing spot with no red tide anywhere in the area. Yet dead bait
Bummer.
And so ends, “The Mystery of the Dead Live Bait - The Red Tide Tales'
If any major type of water quality alert is issued, you can find the details here in WGCU’s Water Quality Report.
RED TIDE
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission sampled for the red tide organism, Karenia brevis, in Southwest Florida earlier this week and found traces of the bacterium inshore and offshore of Manatee, Sarasota, Charlotte, Lee, Collier, and Monroe counties.
In the past week, the Clinic for the Rehabilitation of Wildlife on Sanibel Island unsuccessfully treated a laughing gull for suspected toxic exposure to red tide.
BLUE-GREEN ALGAE
Water quality testing for cyanobacteria by the Lee County Environmental Lab reported no visible blue-green algae in the region.
Florida Department of Environmental Protection assessed satellite imagery of the Caloosahatchee River, Lake Okeechobee, and the St. Lucie River, but clouds block most of the satellite’s views.
The FDEP says it is important to remember the blue-green algae potential is subject to change due to rapidly changing environmental conditions or satellite inconsistencies.
What is red tide?
Red tide is one type of harmful algal bloom caused by high concentrations of the toxic dinoflagellate K. brevis, which is a type of microscopic algae found in the Gulf of Mexico.
Red tide typically forms naturally offshore, commonly in late summer or early fall, and is carried into coastal waters by winds and currents. Once inshore, these opportunistic organisms can use nearshore nutrient sources to fuel their growth.
Blooms typically last into winter or spring but, in some cases, can endure for more than one year.
Is red tide harmful?
K. brevis produces potent neurotoxins that can be harmful to the health of both wildlife and people. Wind and wave action can break open K. brevis cells and release toxins into the air. This is why you should monitor conditions and stay away from beaches where red tide is in bloom.
People in coastal areas can experience varying degrees of eye, nose, and throat irritation during a red tide bloom. Some individuals with chronic respiratory conditions like asthma or chronic lung disease might experience more severe symptoms.
Red tide toxins can also affect the central nervous system of fish and other marine life, which can lead to fish kills.
What causes red tide?
A red tide bloom develops naturally, but recent studies have discovered mankind's infusion of other nutrients into the mix can make the red tide last longer or get stronger. But biology (the organisms), chemistry (natural or man-made nutrients for growth), and physics (concentrating and transport mechanisms) interact to produce the algal bloom. No one factor causes the development of a red tide bloom.
What is blue-green algae?
Blue-green algae, also known as cyanobacteria, are a group of organisms that can live in freshwater, saltwater, or brackish water.
Large concentrations, called blooms, can change the water color to blue, green, brown, orange, or red. Some cyanobacterial blooms can look like foam, scum, or mats on the surface of freshwater lakes and ponds. As algae in a cyanobacterial bloom die, the water may smell like something with a naturally unpleasant odor has now started to rot, too.
Is blue-green algae harmful?
Different types of blue-green algal bloom species can look different and have different impacts. However, regardless of species, many types of blue-green algae can produce toxins that can make you or your pets sick if swallowed or possibly cause skin and eye irritation.
The FDEP advises staying out of the water where algae are visibly present as specks or mats or where water is discolored. Pets or livestock should not come into contact with algal bloom-impacted water or with algal bloom material or fish on the shoreline. If they do, wash the animals right away.
What causes blue-green algae?
Blue-green algae blooms occur when the algae that are typically present grow in numbers more than normal. Within a few days, a bloom can cause clear water to become cloudy.
Winds tend to push the floating blooms to the shore where they become more noticeable. Cyanobacterial blooms can form in warm, slow-moving waters that are rich in nutrients. Blooms can occur at any time, but most often occur in late summer or early fall.
If any major type of water quality alert is issued, you can find the details here in WGCU’s Water Quality Report.
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