white bellie floaters......Follow

went on a weekend trip to Sanibel Island for a few days on the beach. nice little resort community.

its funny how resorts leave out little details when you show up. the hungry look in their eyes. how quickly they want to sign you in. the wicked little smile on their face as they say.....have a nice stay...

"dad, whats that"
"dunno son, let me look at it"
"dad, look at all of them"
"son, lets go check out the pool"
"wow dad, what stinks"
"well, son, its the White Bellie Floaters you see all over the beach...."

yep. red tibe on the west coast of florida all week. dead fish as far as you can see all down the coast. some sea turtles too. kind of sad really. totally indescriminate. just about every kind of fish of every differant size.

ate chicken and beef the whole week.

no leak.

its red tide.

a naturally ocurring event that usually happens once every few years. lately however, it has been happening about twice a year in the gulf of mexico. the reasons it is happening more frequiently range from warmer waters, pesticide runn off from farms, to chemicals from oil platforms to some combination of all three.

it is a bloom of a type of plankton in such a great quantity in open water that it some times turns the sea a red or green color sometimes. it is always present, but what causes it to explood every once in a while is still a mystery with only theories to say why.

when it does, it releases a neurotoxin in the water in suffecient quantites that affects the nervious system of just about anything that swims through it. most of them die. bottom feeders go first. lots of catfish, rays, drum and the sort. but it eventually gets everything. saw a 5 foot tarpon on shore. a 4 foot round sea turtle too.

the toxin remains on the affected fish too. cooking wont kill it, neither will freezing. usually a temporary ban of any and all types of commercial fishing in the affected area. shell fish dont usually die from it, but they carry the toxin in their system long after the bloom is gone. so dont eat anything without fins from the gulf of mexico, including crawdads and oysters. it is happening twice a year now, so pretty good bet most of them have been exposed to it.

for humans, it isnt fatal, but does affect the respatory system. anything from sneezing to runny eyes, congestion, and if your ashmatic, problems breething that usually go away immediatly when you leave the affected area. an affected area is not just where the tide is, but also where the dead fish are that have it in their system as they rot in the sun.

as a way to get away from the beach sceen, we went on a drift fishing trip a good 15 miles away from the beech. hooked a couple bait fish, but nothing was biting no matter where we went. it devastates the entire ecosystem.

if it keeps happening a couple times a year, eventually, it will destroy the entire fishing industry in the gulf of mexico, not to mention change the thriving ecosystem into a dead shell fish flats where you see nothing but....white bellie floaters.

meanwhile, farms are screaming "it isnt us", oil compaines are lobbieng politicians to say "if you cant prove it, you cant say it", and any and all substantial research on why and how it is happening is getting....sponsered.....by one of the two interest groups.

the result? nothing substantial is being done to either prevent it, or even find out exactly why it is happening so frequiently. most conservation groups have been reduced to "reporting" when and where it happens, and not much else. no funding.

god forbid someone loose some money to save an entire ecosystem. we still have chicken, right?

you see words here, but there really is no way for me to describe howdepressing it is. adn not having seen it before myself, i was totally oblivious to anything having to do with it untill i literlaly stepped in it myself. it is happening right now. on our door step. and being mostly ignored. the farmers dont want to hear about it. the oil companies dont want to hear about it. the tourist industry wants to sweep it under the rug. and NO ONE is suggesting we fix it except the conservation groups who will NEVER get any political funding to air our dirty laundry in public when no one wants it seen.

it is really really sad. what i saw was only a tiny portion of the death it caused. the tiny portion that happened to wash up on that small part of shore line on those few particular days, and yet, what i saw was devastation to sea life. sea turtles, giant tarpon, large and small fish of all types. sea rays. eels, so many eels. if it swam, it died.

really depressing. and really no way anything will get done about it...in this country anyway. fortunatly, it happens all over the world in almost every ocean. just not as often as it has been happening here lately. and it may very well be nothing that can be done about it. if its related to global warming, which is possible considering the gulf of mexico is a very warm body of water to begine with, it may, just like the hurricane seasons, just get continually worse no matter what we do.

would be nice to find out though, one way or another.

Fish die

get over it

I hear ya, it is pretty Shitty. I had the extreme honor of being caught in a "red tide" my Freshman year of High School. I was swimming in the ocean as usal with a group of friends. Suddenly we were surronded by a "clump" of red and orange slick that covered our bodies and needless to say ruined our day at the beach and shut down the shoreline for a week or so.

the only thing that smelled was the rotting fish. there were other things to do on the island, so we made the best of it, but anything to do with nature was tainted. fishing, nature walks, bicycling, collecting shells.

i can adapt to almost anything and still find something interesting to do. and i understand why the resort didnt say anything at all when i regestered, it is their lively hood at stake. but there was no information anywhere. not even on the news. the entire shoreline was littered with dead fish and not a peep on the tv or radio.

they knew it too. the lady didnt even bother asking how my stay was when i checked out. she finnished the transaction as fast a s possible and retreated into the back room. guess too many fights with customers was taking its toll on them.

infact, the only information i got from anyone was from the captain of the charter fishing boat. no one on the island wanted to talk about it or even acknoledge it. what i did learn, after the captain told us why we were not catching any fish.......again AFTER taking our money and carting us out into the bay........was from the natinal wildlife refuge people there. they had alot of information, including how it was poping up twice a year now, and lasting for weeks instead of days when it did occur. and also how there was no funding to study it or do anything about it but log times and locations of the events from private and commercial fisherman. that is the extent of our national involvement in the situation.

probably wont be going back to the west coast of florida again anytime soon. but that wont change the depressing situation there. it was really saddening to see so many dead fish. didnt even bother to get out the snorkeling gear from the back of the truck. the only swimming we did was in the pool.

also made me kind of angry. the health of my familey was a concern, and although EVERYONE working on the island knew what was happening and why, no one said a word to any of the parents heading to the beach with a car load of kids. just kind of let them wander out and discover it for themselves......for the almighty dollar. gotta love this country. i understand it is their lievely hood being decimated along with the sea life, but there should be a point where their concious draws a line between money and the safety and health of children.

wont find it on the west coast of florida though. that was almost as depressing as the red tide. almost because i have lived in this country long enough to understand a dollar in someones pocket is a hell of alot more important than the health of someone ELSE,s kids.

live and learn.

Should make fishing easy.