Red Tide threatening fish, tourism along SWFL beaches

Red Tide is threatening beaches across Southwest Florida.

On Friday, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission released the latest red tide map.

Charlotte County is in the orange zone, which means there are medium concentrations of toxic algae that could be killing fish.

On Englewood Beach, visitors said it was difficult to breathe Friday, so many spent the day indoors trying to avoid the respiratory effects of Red Tide, which also is causing a massive fish kill.

Hundreds of dead fish and other sea creatures lined the beach as far as the eye could see in either direction.

“It’s been pretty bad. Very much difficult to breathe,” said beach visitor Darlene Plank.

Plank says the dead fish started washing up on shore Wednesday, but when she woke up Friday, there were hundreds more.

Plank says she also called Charlotte County to come clean up the fish, but was told she needed to do it herself, which she says just isn’t possible.

“I’m not able to clean up dead fish, and with the tax dollars that we pay, I don’t think we should have to,” Plank said.

She adds that something needs to be done because the Red Tide isn’t just bad for her health and the wildlife, but it’s also impacting tourism on the beach itself.

“We have no people down there on the beach. We have nobody down there at the restaurants and the bars and this is how we make our living and it’s disgraceful that they won’t support us and bring some help in here,” Plank said.

WINK News contacted the county and they said they had crews in the area earlier in the week to pick up some of the dead fish. They add that they’ll continue to monitor the situation to see if further clean-ups are necessary.