Two dead manatees reported in local waters

BY LESLIE LAKE SUN CORRESPONDENT | llake@amisun.com

CORTEZ – Cortez-based boat Capt. Kathe Fannon is seeing firsthand the impact of red tide in local waters.

“It’s pretty bad,” she said on March 10. “We’ve had cancellations, two or three alone today. I’m taking the weekend off.”

Fannon, a fourth-generation Cortezian, conducts sightseeing boat tours in Sarasota Bay, as well as handson ecotours in which she introduces people to the local marine life. She said that the red tide is impacting marine life other than fish.

“There was a dead manatee recently off Egmont Key by the pilot house,” she said. “I called Mote Marine and they got in touch with FWC (the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission).”

A second manatee was found dead in the area of the Seafood Shack in Cortez.

“We heard a report that it was by Flamingo Cay and we were looking for it for three days,” she said. “We found it on the third day, but by then it was too late.”

Fannon said the ongoing red tide is preventable.

“Why is it still here?” she asked. “This is something that it never did before. If it lasted four days, we used to be surprised.”

CREWS: Keeping local beaches clean

FROM PAGE 4 dumped a load of fish and one large grouper was in there, probably about 3-foot long.”

At Bean Point on Thursday, dead fish were scattered from the shore to the dune lines more than 60 feet away.

“The full moon we had recently and the huge tides washed the fished up to about a 100-foot span,” said Liza Click, supervisor of the Manatee County Property Management Grounds Division. “We’re seeing sheepshead, trout, catfish, dogfish, a lot of mullet and an occasional big grouper washed up on the sand.”

The county has four rakes to cover the local beaches and has been operating three of them recently.

“This past Sunday we had three beach rakes going off,” Click said on Thursday. “Winds play a big part in our day. Today was a great day.”

Click, who operates a beach rake, said her day begins at 4:30-5 a.m.

“The good thing is, we’re not in turtle season so I can get out there early,” she said. “I start at Coquina and once I get to Cortez, I’m closer to the buildings and I can get done by 6 or so.”

Click said the dumpsters where the fish are disposed of are emptied three times a week, and the county is getting ready to put down lime under the dumpsters to alleviate the odors of dead fish.

Taylor said that so far the fish kills are less than he saw during the heavy red tide of 2018.

“It’s not as bad as ’18 was,” he said. “In ’18 we had much larger quantities of fish on the beach. We’re able to manage right now. We had to bring everybody out in ’18. I worked 28 12-hour nights and days then.”

In 2018, Taylor said there was a run of dead horseshoe crabs along with the fish.

“What’s interesting is at Bayfront, it's primarily bay species. It’ll be mullet and trout and sheepshead,” he said. “And then out front (in the Gulf of Mexico), you’ll get the grouper and the mackerel and maybe a pompano even.”

Taylor said thus far, the fish cleanups have been manageable for county crews.

“At some point we have the beach clean each day right now,” he said.

She pointed to fertilizer runoff exacerbating the red tide blooms.

“You can’t have green grass all the time,” she said. “There are golf courses in Manatee and Sarasota counties where the fertilizer runoff goes right to the water.”

Fannon would like to see legislation to help prevent runoff that makes red tide worse.

“It (red tide) is a natural occurrence, but it can’t cure itself,” she said.

RED TIDE: intensifies

FROM PAGE 4 discoloration and detection by satellite. Red tide levels were reported as medium at Kingfish Boat Ramp on Anna Maria Sound just east of Anna Maria Island and at the Rod and Reel Pier in Anna Maria. Medium levels can cause respiratory irritation, shellfish harvesting closures, probable fish kills and detection by satellite. Palma Sola Bay had low levels of red tide.

According to the FWC, red tide was observed at low to high concentrations in 12 samples collected in Manatee County, background to high concentrations in 38 samples collected in Pinellas County to the north and background to high concentrations in 51 samples collected in Sarasota County to the south.

For updated information on red tide, visit the Red Tide Respiratory Forecast at RedTideForecast. com, which tells beachgoers what red tide impacts are expected at individual beaches at different times of the day. The forecast is also available in Spanish at PronosticoMareaRoja.com.

Beachgoers also can get updates at visitbeaches. org, the Mote Marine Laboratory beach conditions reporting system, which documents respiratory irritation and fish kills at local beaches. Call 866-300-9399 from anywhere in Florida to hear a recording about red tide conditions throughout the state.