Tons of Dead Fish Removed From Florida Waters in Tropical Storm Elsa Aftermath

Photo Credit: GETTY

There is currently a clean up effort underway on the shores of St. Petersburg Fl. Where officials have stated that this was their busiest day yet. Stating that nine tons of dead fish were removed in the past 24 hours alone. They said the total is more dead fish collected than in the last week.

A huge red tide is being cited as the main reason behind all the dead marine life, although officials said Tropical Storm Elsa is thought to have at least contributed to bringing many of the remains to the shoreline.

Red tides are a phenomenon of discoloration of sea surface. It is a common name for harmful algal blooms occurring along coastal regions, which are resulted from large concentrations of aquatic microorganisms, such as protozoans and unicellular algae.

The waters around Florida are a common site of red tides, and St. Petersburg is experiencing a severe occurrence of it now. City officials reportedly noticed a wave of dead fish near the coast days ago, and they’ve since been found in mangroves, close to the shore, and in the bay.

With Elsa’s damaging high winds, like many Tropical storms. The cleanup efforts most likely will continue for a couple of days. Please be on alert for more Red Tides, as they can cause havoc with sea life, and always report any sea death you may encounter on the beaches/shores to fish and wildlife or Local Law Enforcement.

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Rare cancers spreading among sea creatures have scientists perplexed

A LONG TIME ago, though we don’t know how long, a bay mussel somewhere in the Northern Hemisphere developed a leukemia-like cancer. It began as a mutation in a single rogue cell, which copied itself over and over and over again, and spread through the mussel’s hemolymph, the blood-like fluid in its body. 

But then the cancer did something it was not supposed to do, or so we thought: It somehow spread to other mussels through the water. Cloning itself again and again in these new hosts, the malignancy continued to proliferate and infect new individuals. 

Even stranger still, the disease didn’t remain in bay mussels alone: It’s now been found in two other shellfish species on opposite ends of the world: blue mussels in France, and Chilean mussels in Argentina and Chile. 

This finding, described in a paper published Tuesday in the journal eLife, is the latest in a series of studies showing the transmissible cancers are more common than previously believed—especially in the ocean.

Read more here: Nat Geo- Rare Cancer Spreads Among Sea Creatures