FloridaRed Tide

Florida Citizens and visitors have been using the report red tide (thanks!) page to tell us about what they thought was a large red tide bloom along the east coast of Florida. Well Florida’s Fish and Wildlife Research Institute begs to differ.
Algae

They say it’s a less lethal “diatom” bloom. I’m not sure if they are purposely trying to confuse you or they are trying to be scientifically accurate. But it’s an algae bloom folks.

It ‘s a less lethal algae bloom becuase it doesn’t give off toxins that paralyze, like red tide (K. Brevis) does. The organism in guestion is Thalassiosira . While it doesn’t paralyze animals breathing it like K. Brevis does. It does kill:

It is not uncommon for gelatinous colonies of Thalassiosira sp. to get caught up in the Gulf Stream and flow north along the Atlantic coastline (Fryxell et al. 1984). While biotoxins have not been associated with blooms of Thalassiosira, shellfish and finfish mortalities can occur due to gill clogging, starvation due to decreased food quality, and post bloom anoxia (low oxygen) events

A quick read tells us they are still making considerable effort in all of their articles to imply that HAB’s are completely natural, not on the increase and are not influenced by human activity.

In fact, a search with their sites search engine returns no results for culprit #1 “Polluted Runoff”

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