Species Coming Back After '05 Gulf Outbreak
Shallow grass flats from Fort DeSoto Park to Sarasota Bay are once again teeming with gator trout, snook and redfish three years after the massive red tide bloom wiped out the entire food chain.
And scientists are working to refine technologies to predict and monitor red tides, even searching for solutions to control and lessen the impact of blooms.
"We're funding research into potential control efforts, but it can cover thousands of square miles," said Leanne Flewelling, an assistant research scientist at the Fish and Wildlife Research Institute, or FWRI, in St. Petersburg. "There's never going to be anything that can eradicate it. It's a natural part of the Gulf ecosystem. Most of the efforts are to lessen the impact."
Karenia brevis, the strain of red tide specific to the Gulf of Mexico and named for a Florida scientist, can kill almost everything in its path - marine mammals, fish, birds and turtles - by producing a toxin that attacks the central nervous system of these creatures.
Intense outbreaks of the microscopic alga also cause respiratory distress in people at beach spots like Anna Maria, not to mention the tons of dead fish that pile up along the surf.
