The worst red tide event in more than a decade has left droves of dead animals, including an “unprecedented” number of sea turtles, on Southwest Florida beaches. According to the Fort Myers News-Press, scores of sea turtles have been collected in Lee and Collier counties over the past week. Hundreds of others may have also died from “this particularly strong red tide event.”
“We took in four new sea turtles yesterday,” Heather Barron, director of the veterinarian hospital at the Center for the Rehabilitation of Wildlife on Sanibel, told the newspaper. “Two very large adult male loggerheads and each were over 200 pounds and both were very consistent with red tide poisoning. We also took in a Kemp’s ridley juvenile and it was showing signs of red tide poisoning, and we also took in a juvenile loggerhead.” READ MORE
