Sea life kills blamed on red tide continue, beachgoers, fishermen concerned

With recent reports of red tide concentrations along our shores, there are concerns conditions may continue to worsen.

Our crew experienced coughing and watery eyes themselves while out providing coverage at the beach in Collier County this evening.

Continued fish kills seen along the beach and now possibly a dead sea turtle in Southwest Florida are being blamed on red tide Friday.

“If it’s intense red tide you’ll see dead fish floating,” said Allen Walburn, the captain of A and B Charters.

Beachgoers are not diverting focus away from the news for a minute.

“I’m definitely concerned about it from an environmental standpoint,” Dawn Biery said.

Pictures of dead sea life are making beachgoers and fishing captains weary, reminding them all about the devastating effects of last summer’s red tide.

“In September, October last year, it was pretty bad,” Biery said. “And we didn’t go to the beach very much at all in this area.”

It hurt business and tourism throughout the region.

“We had a bad break of red tide last year,” Walburn said. “It did hurt everybody.”

Walburn hopes the conditions change for the better, so they don’t do what they did to the area in 2018. But there remains concern.

“It doesn’t look good to me,” Walburn said.