It’s been long known by citizens, especially in Florida, that red tide kills pets and contributes to deaths of the elderly and the sickly that are bed ridden near red tide contaminated waters. The latter is pretty rare, because usually, anyone that has the resources to live near the water in Florida, has the resources to move when their doctor says “You’re sick already, get away from the red tide!”
Pets and other land animals are a completely different story. Not only are their mouths closer to the ground (the toxins are slightly heavier than air), but lots of animals have no choice but to stay.
Texas Officials are warning people to keep their pets away from the beach, as the red tide has killed several and sickened many many more.
Ever seen a pelican that appears to be drunk during a red tide bloom?
WARNING: It gets grim, sad and a little graphic below: Continued…
Red tide activity is on the increase in the Gulf of Mexico. The red tide bloom in Texas stretches as far as 200 miles off shore. There’s a large fish kill involved there. Florida also has a large fish kill from a red tide bloom. It’s right off the coast of Sanibel Island and a smaller fish kill is already effecting it’s beaches.
The red tide there is strengthening and enlarging although it’s unknown how far off shore it stretches.
This is kinda troubling folks, the red tide bloom in Texas and the red tide bloom in southwestern Florida have Not been mitigated by the cold front like everyone expected. Right now both of these red tides will increase in size or strength after the weather comes back? Well that remains to be seen, but it sometimes does. In fact it wasn’t too long ago that Florida had a red tide that lasted several years. Right now the red tide report details the mostly broken up red tide. However it’s based mostly on reports from FWRI, which is notorious for it’s efforts to downplay red tide and it’s effects. For instance, in their latest rounds of tests, they didn’t take samples from the area off of the Ft Myers / Naples Florida area that had a large and rapidly growing red tide bloom just last week. No samples taken, thus no red tide found. See how that works? It also has a contaminating effect on historical red tide tide data, but that’s a story for another time.
Read our Red Tide Report page for updates. The bloom in Sarasota County is growing, but slowly.
The Red tide bloom down in Ft Myers Florida and Naples Florida is a totally different story! It’s increasing in strength and size rapidly. In fact there is either a brand new red tide bloom off Charlotte Harbor or the off Naples has spread all the way north to there.
These reports are coming from FWRI and are a week old. We’ve had big rain since then, which washes fertilizer from the farms into their river and then into the Gulf feeding the K. Brevis algae that make up red tide. However we’ve also had a cold front that’s bringing lower temperature which may cool the water and thus discourage this Harmful Algal bloom from growing.
Florida residents and tourists please feel free to comment below. Also we’d like to welcome the sudden influx of viewers from Texas and wish them the best with their recent red tide.
I also like to get some feed back from everyone about if I shuld dedicate a page to a Texas red Tide Report, just rename the Florida Red Tide report to theRed tide Report or just not include the information about red tides in Texas. Maine, other countries, etc. It is a lot to keep up with!
The Sandcastle Days Festival in South Padre Island Texas had an unwelcome visitor this weekend. A Red Tide bloom. I feel sorry for the artists that stuck it out and completed there sandcastles. It appears the artists were staggered from 50′ to 150′ from the shoreline and they still complained of coughing wheezing, and eyes that just would not stop burning (don’t rub them , there’s red tide toxins on your hands!).
Visitors weren’t warned and for some reason they didn’t cancel the show despite the threat to public safety. Red tide blooms and other Harmful Algae Blooms (HAB) cause life threatening symptoms to those with weakened immune systems, pets, people with respiratory disorders etc.
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