Cooler weather not affecting red tide
Dec 01, 2011 6:21 PM EST
By Saundra Weathers, NBC2 Reporter
SANIBEL ISLAND, FL -
Our cold snap is doing little to stem the red tide in Southwest Florida. Scientists have detected the deadly toxin as far south as Marco Island and all the way up to Sanibel Island.
Because of the wind, we're not seeing as many dead fish on shore here as we have the past few days. But just because they're not seen on the beach, it doesn't mean they don't exist.
"We were thinking that the cold temperature would kill them off, but they're still around and the samples I looked at today, they're doing fine," said Rick Bartleson, with the Sanibel Captiva Conservation Foundation.
He was referring to the karenia brevis cells, also know as red tide.
Thursday, Bartleson found more than 1-million toxic cells in 1-liter of water on Sanibel Island.
"It's what the fwc classifies as high," he explained.
That high concentration is killing thousands of fish and other wildlife.
"There are a lot of things that are affected by the breva toxin, so even some birds may be affected from eating fish infected with toxin, the clams with concentrated toxin," he said.
Manatees, sharks, dolphins and even sea turtles can all be affected as well, Bartleson explained.
"Some will perish and some will survive. It's just kind of the way of nature," said Jeffrey Schmidt, with the Conservancy of Southwest Florida.
Schmidt is tracking sea turtles with the Conservancy of Southwest Florida.
In the past week, five Kemp's-ridley turtles have washed up dead on Sanibel and Fort Myers Beach.
"We have a unique opportunity of an event that hasn't really occurred in five years and were at the right place and the right time to document the turtles' behavior relative to the red tide research," Schmidt said.
All research, he says, from the turtles down to the phytoplankton is important.
Bartleson says he is focusing on ways to force the toxin from the water. One experiment involves adding the element silica to it.
"You could potentially limit the nutrient availability to karenia and decrease their growth rate that way," Bartleson said.
That solution seems to kill off the toxin. But right now there's no way to spread it across the 40-mile long bloom.
So for now, it will continue on its course
"If the concentrations keep increasing, we'll keep seeing more dead things."
And in Collier County Thursday, Pollution Control tested the waters from Barefoot Beach south to Marco Island.
Those results are expected back on Friday.
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