SANIBEL, Fla. (WINK) – A rare algae bloom is making its way through several Southwest Florida beaches, and researchers say it could pose a serious threat to marine life.<\/p>\n
It is called rust tide, and this is only the second time it has been spotted in the area since 2023.<\/p>\n
Rust tide, also known as Margalefidinium, gives the water a dark, reddish-brown color. Unlike red tide, it does not produce toxins harmful to humans.<\/p>\n
However, it does strip oxygen from the water, making it harder for marine life to survive.<\/p>\n
“The oxygen being taken out of the water, and when that happens, everything in the water has a harder time surviving,” a researcher said.<\/p>\n
Researchers say recent stormy weather could be behind the rare bloom. It has been reported since Sept. 1 in areas around Sanibel, Tarpon Bay, Captiva Pass, Pine Island Sound and Cayo Costa.<\/p>\n
Scientists are now tracking where the bloom is spreading and how it is changing.<\/p>\n
“We do have the highest concentrations we’ve seen for any of the non-red tide blooms. It’s quite a significant amount of cells per liter and the chlorophyll amount of chlorophyll per liter is very high,” a researcher said.<\/p>\n
While rust tide can lead to fish kills, there have not been many reports of dead fish yet.<\/p>\n
“We’ve gotten a few reports of like just a few fish here. I don’t think I haven’t seen any reports of large fish kills, but if it persists and especially if the areas of it continue to have a very high cell count of that dinoflagellate, then it’s going to cause more fish kills,” a researcher said.<\/p>\n
Even though the bloom is not toxic to humans, people are still advised to stay out of the water where rust tide is present.<\/p>\n
Researchers say there is no known way to eliminate rust tide, leaving it unclear how long the bloom will last.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SANIBEL, Fla. (WINK) – A rare algae bloom is making its way through several Southwest Florida beaches, and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":401196,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[209,211,210,115,121785],"class_list":["post-401195","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news","tag-news","tag-southwest_florida"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401195","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=401195"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401195\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/401196"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=401195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=401195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=401195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}