If you are heading to the beach this Memorial Day weekend, you might be dealing with a natural nuisance.<\/p>\n
WATCH BELOW: ‘It can rub against the skin and create a lot of rashes,’ Capt. Derick Brown tells WPTV’s Tyler Hatfield<\/p>\n
Sargassum seaweed is washing ashore at Martin County beaches, and visitors are noticing it blanketing the shoreline.<\/p>\n
“It’s a lot out here, more than I’ve seen in a while,” beachgoer Carol Armstrong said.<\/p>\n
“We’re trying to play around it,” Stephanie Tomas said, with her family.<\/p>\n
Where is it coming from?<\/p>\n
Mark Perry, executive director of the Florida Oceanographic Society, said the area is seeing more sargassum \u2014 and there is a specific reason why.<\/p>\n
In 2011, Perry said, a large amount of sargassum formed a new belt in the Atlantic off of Africa and has since pushed sargassum to our coastline. Perry said it acts as its own ecosystem in the water.<\/p>\n
“There are a lot of smaller fish and crabs and shrimp that harbor in that, and of course they’re the food source for bigger fish,” Perry said.<\/p>\n
What are the risks?<\/p>\n
Capt. Derick Brown with Martin County Ocean Rescue said once sargassum comes ashore, it can cause skin irritation.<\/p>\n
In the water, it can carry marine life like jellyfish or man-o-war, which could harm swimmers.<\/p>\n
Sargassum can also break down if left on the beach too long and release a rotten egg stench.<\/p>\n
Beachgoers can expect sargassum on the beaches until the end of summer.<\/p>\n
This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you are heading to the beach this Memorial Day weekend, you might be dealing with a natural…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":282091,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[171,173,172],"class_list":["post-282090","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-port-st-lucie","tag-port-st-lucie","tag-port-st-lucie-headlines","tag-port-st-lucie-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282090","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=282090"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282090\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/282091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}