Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff production of iHeart Radio. Hey brain
Speaker 1: Stuff Lauren bog Obam here. Since about the summer of
Speaker 1: the Gulf Coast of Florida has suffered from a disturbing phenomenon,
Speaker 1: an expanse of murky, reddish brown water that kills vast
Speaker 1: quantities of fish and other aquatic animals and leaves the
Speaker 1: beaches littered with carcasses, reeking from the smell of decomposition.
Speaker 1: The carnage is the result of a phenomenon called a
Speaker 1: red tide, an explosion of harmful alkal blooms that occurs
Speaker 1: in ocean waters around the world. According to the u
Speaker 1: S National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, these blooms occur when
Speaker 1: colonies of particular kinds of algae, which are tiny plants
Speaker 1: that can live in both fresh and salt water, grow
Speaker 1: out of control and produce toxins that can kill fish
Speaker 1: and make shellfish unsafe to eat. The red tide that
Speaker 1: choked Florida lasted for almost eighteen months until February of
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen, when it was no longer detected in the waters,
Speaker 1: but now it appears to be back. Scientists from the
Speaker 1: Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission released a report in
Speaker 1: November of twenty nineteen stating that a bloom of red
Speaker 1: tide had been observed in southwest Florida and that they
Speaker 1: had received reports of fish kills as well. All harmful
Speaker 1: algal blooms have been reported at times in every US
Speaker 1: coastal state. They occur nearly every summer along Florida's Gulf coast. There,
Speaker 1: the species that most often causes the problem is Corennia brevis,
Speaker 1: a microscopic organism with a massive potential for destruction. To
Speaker 1: distinguish it from other varieties of red tidek brevis blooms
Speaker 1: are called Florida red tide. According to the Florida Fish
Speaker 1: and Wildlife Conservation Commission, cab brevist is found in the
Speaker 1: waters off of Florida year round in concentrations of a
Speaker 1: thousand cells or less per liter of water, but in
Speaker 1: the summer and early fall, cab Brevis can go wild.
Speaker 1: For example, a study by University of South Florida scientists
Speaker 1: published in these scientific journal Censors describes a July fourteen
Speaker 1: bloom in which the algae multiplied concentrations of up to
Speaker 1: twenty million per liter of water in some patches and
Speaker 1: formed a bloom that spread over thousands of square miles
Speaker 1: of offshore water. Red tides apparently have been happening along
Speaker 1: the Florida coast for a long time. Spanish explorers described
Speaker 1: finding massive fish kills in the fifteen hundreds, and the
Speaker 1: phenomenon was first scientifically documented in the eighteen forties. A
Speaker 1: massive Florida red tide event that started in November of
Speaker 1: nine lasted roughly a year and killed estimated one billion fish.
Speaker 1: What exactly causes Florida red tide events remains a little murky,
Speaker 1: though A study published by University of Miami scientists in
Speaker 1: the journal Harmful Algae in December and Yes, there is
Speaker 1: a whole journal for this suggests that it has to
Speaker 1: do with fluctuations in the position of the loop current,
Speaker 1: which is a flow of warm water that travels through
Speaker 1: the e Gulf of Mexico. Though red tide has gotten
Speaker 1: a lot of media coverage, it's unclear whether looms are
Speaker 1: actually getting any worse. We spoke via email with marine
Speaker 1: scientist Dr Vince Loveco, a manager of the phytoplankton Ecology
Speaker 1: program at Marine Laboratory and Zarasoda Florida and Hailey Rutger
Speaker 1: Moats content development manager. They explained it's hard to provide
Speaker 1: a simple answer about the long term trends in red
Speaker 1: tide frequency, abundance of the algae, size of blooms throughout
Speaker 1: Florida's history, or long term trends and other features because
Speaker 1: data collection has changed and improved so much over time.
Speaker 1: Red tides do a lot of damage. The toxins released
Speaker 1: by cabe revis can cause massive die offs of fish, shrimp, sponges,
Speaker 1: sea urchins, crabs, and sea birds. The toxins can cause
Speaker 1: sea turtles to swim in circles and lose their coordinations
Speaker 1: so that they become stranded and die. And creatures as
Speaker 1: large as manatees may succumb to the poison as well
Speaker 1: as they eat smaller animals that have ingested the toxins.
Speaker 1: And even people, particularly those with emphysema and asthma, can
Speaker 1: be harmed by red tide as coastal INDs blow airborne
Speaker 1: toxins inland as far as a mile or about one
Speaker 1: and a half kilometers. Folks with lung sensitivities are advised
Speaker 1: to avoid red tied areas. So can something be done?
Speaker 1: To stop red tides or at least control them. As
Speaker 1: of yet, nobody's come up with a solution. Love Cohen
Speaker 1: Rector said, Corenia brevist occurs naturally in the Gulf of Mexico,
Speaker 1: and there is no tried and true way to completely
Speaker 1: remove the algae and its impacts without potentially harming gulf ecosystems. However,
Speaker 1: we are studying smaller scale control and mitigation methods that
Speaker 1: may benefit limited area waterways, such as closed canals in
Speaker 1: red tide affected coastal communities. Researchers are exploring some possible
Speaker 1: methods for red tied mitigation, such as living docks covered
Speaker 1: with filter feeding animals and oz nation equipment that could
Speaker 1: remove red tide from limited areas of water. The use
Speaker 1: of K brevast killing compounds from seaweed or other organisms
Speaker 1: that would act as parasites on them are other possible
Speaker 1: remedies being evaluated. Today's episode was written by Patrick J.
Speaker 1: Kiger and produced by Tyler Clay. Brain Stuff is production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more in
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