Red Tide, the toxic microscopic marine organism, has been positively identified on the Florida East Coast, where it has already led to fish kills and complaints by beach goers of breathing difficulties, headaches and other symptoms.
The Red Tide is nothing new, it was mentioned by some of the early Spanish explorers in the Gulf of Mexico as far back as the 1500s, but it has becoming progressively more common and more severe over the years, I remember it blooming occasionally while growing up in Tampa in the 1950s, but it has become an almost yearly occurrence recently. But as far as I know, this is the first time it has ever been documented on the Atlantic Coast where marine conditions are substantially different.
The Green Guacamole Slime algae has also migrated to both coasts from Lake Okeechobee, causing great damage in the lagoons between the mainland and the barrier islands, moving along the rivers that carry overflow fresh water from the lake to the sea. And of course, I’ve also mentioned that the Sargassum Plague of the Caribbean islands seems to be moving up this way, although unlike its disastrous effect on tourism there, its effect here has been mostly a nuisance, cosmetic, but not an ecological disaster–yet.
Now that agricultural pests have caused great damage to citrus, and difficulty in securing immigrant farm labor has crippled the truck farming industry, it looks like Florida cannot afford any more economic hits. Right now, real estate and tourism is about all we have left.
Meanwhile, the Everglades are being devastated by the Burmese python, an imported species that, without natural predators, has already threatened to wipe out all native birds, reptiles and mammals in the National Park and the adjoining Big Cypress wilderness. The only native critter that seems to be doing fairly well, making a comeback from near-extinction, is the American Crocodile, which is making a comeback in the cooling ponds of the Turkey Point Nuclear Power Plant.
Wherever America is heading, Florida will get there first.