WTF? Now Manatees Are Dying off Both Florida Coasts

COULD THE DISPERSANTS THE GULF OF MEXICO WAS CARPET BOMBED WITH AFTER THE MACONDO WELL DISASTER IN APRIL, 2010 BE THE REAL CAUSE? WHAT DO YOU THINK?

Florida manatees: flickkerphotos at Flickr

A record number of manatees—more than 180, and counting—have died so far this year from a red tide off the southwest Florida coast. These tides are caused by blooms of the alga, Karenia brevis, which produce a suite of neurotoxins (brevetoxins) deadly to fish, sea turtles, birds, and marine mammals. Red tides are harmful to people too, if you breathe enough of the aerosolized toxins or eat enough infected fish or shellfish. Now, from Craig Pittman at the Tampa Bay Times, we learn that a mysterious ailment is killing manatees off Florida's other (east) coast too. There's no red tide bloom underway there and no winter cold snap either:

So far... no sick manatees have been rescued, availing biologists with a live specimen to study for clues. They suspect the manatee deaths may be connected to back-to-back blooms of a [another species of] harmful algae, one that has stained the Indian River Lagoon a chocolate brown. Over the past two years the blooms wiped out some 31,000 acres of sea grass in the 156-mile-long lagoon that stretches along the state's Atlantic coast. Manatees eat sea grass, but with the sea grass gone, they may have turned to less healthful sources of nutrition.

Read more at the link:
http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2013/03/now-manatees-are-dying-both-florida-coasts