Red Tide Crisis of Southwest Florida

Here is my version of the Red Tide crisis of 2015-2018. This year was the worst to date. Florida’s estuaries are at tremendous risk. I have been tracking the waters from a birds eye view since 2015- which is ironic because if you hit the beaches today, you won’t find any birds. It’s almost eerie walking the shorelines. I remember being a kid and seeing the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico and as I grew older the water has slowly turned darker and darker shades. Most recently, especially since I started to do aerial photography, the water has drastically changed. I filmed back in January 2015, and then again in February 2015- one month later and the water looked toxic. Red tide is a natural occurrence, but to this degree- something else is going on. I’m just here to document, not point any fingers. I just hope that one day soon we can make our beaches safe and pretty again fo my children who constantly ask me to go to the beach to do beach clean up. Ever since they were old enough to grab, they have been cleaning our beaches in order to save the sea life from us humans. We are a tourist driven economy, and right now, our water isn’t safe. Manatees and dolphins have died due to the brevotoxins released by the red tide. Countless redfish, snook, goliath grouper, tarpon, and many other economically valuable sporting fish were victims of this bloom. It was crazy to witness and at one point I saw a “family” of dolphins slowly moving through floating dead fish on the causeway. It was horrific. They were no doubt in my mind dying- right there in front of my eyes as I watched tourist visiting for the first time all excited to see them. This isn’t normal, their movements weren’t natural. I will never be able to get that image and memory out of my head. Red tide is naturally occurring. The blooms miles and miles offshore. But when the blooms are blown inshore, they are able to use nutrients from the Lake Okeechobee discharges and other pollution- all from us humans. When the red tide made its way to the mouth of the Caloosahatchee and surrounding bays the nutrient rich water “supercharged” the bloom, causing unprecedented devastation. Share the word, and let’s all hope we can fix this very serious issue…