Resources
to save manatee and other sea life nearing limit a year after toxic red tide
bloom outbreak
Richard Luscombe in
Orlando, Florida
Mon 19
Nov 2018 14.51 GMTFirst published on Mon 19 Nov
2018 11.00 GMT
At the
peak of Florida’s red tide crisis this summer, Jon Peterson had to dig deep
into Sea World’s storage warehouses to find enough portable pools to
accommodate the dozens of sick manatees arriving at a rate of two or three a
week.
The
Orlando theme park’s manager for animal rescues even found himself forking out
for air fares to send some of his younger manatee patients off to zoos in Ohio
to free enough space in the rehabilitation centre for the newest victims of
the toxic
algae phenomenon that has killed thousands of fish and marine mammals.
It was,
Peterson says, “the roughest red tide we’ve had in a long while”, testing to
the limit the capabilities of the Sea World facility and the many other
essential components of a fragile network of foster care for Florida’s
distressed sea life in times of emergency.
Now, with
red tide blooms still creeping along areas of the state’s west coast in high
concentrations, according to the latest
water samplings from the Florida fish and wildlife commission (FWC),
there has been little let-up in the pressure on the marine parks, zoos and
aquariums that continue to respond to the crisis a
year after its outbreak.
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