- April 4, 2025
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Manatee County parks officials were quick to respond when beachgoers began reporting fish kills, a side effect of red tide, on beaches from Longboat Key to Coquina Beach.
Around mid-February, Longboat Key residents experienced the effects of what seemed to be a red tide bloom. The usual suspects were prominent — piles of fish kill, foul odor and respiratory issues.
Residents, along with local municipalities, began noticing the symptoms around Feb. 14 according to Carmine DeMilio, deputy director for parks and county grounds with Manatee County.
The next morning, DeMilio’s team was mobilized on the beaches by 8 a.m., ready to begin the initial cleanup.
Over that weekend, though, Longboat Key residents reported respiratory issues and fish kill had worsened. On Feb. 17, piles of dead fish covered many parts of Longboat Key’s beaches near the tide lines.
That week and into the following weekend, conditions improved and, since then, red tide symptoms have been miniscule around the island.
Behind the scenes, during that week, Manatee County was cleaning northern beaches every day.
The county’s response included Manatee Beach, Coquina Beach, the Bayfront Park beach and the Manatee County side of Longboat Key. It’s about 2.7 miles of beaches to rake.
DeMilio said Feb. 13-20 were the hardest-hit days, and crews had to use three rakes on the beaches daily to ensure a clean beach.
The crews mobilized early in the mornings and aimed to be done by 10 a.m. every day, completing at least four passes on each section, according to DeMilio.
“We usually start about 5:30-6 a.m. because we want to be off the beach by 10 a.m. because we don’t want to inconvenience any of the visitors that are trying to set up for the day,” DeMilio said.
Tractors along the beaches pull mechanical rakes to collect the piles of dead fish into a loader.
“That’s not only cleaned and raked but it gets sifted so that there’s no debris left behind, whether it’s fish, a bottle cap or a piece of glass,” DeMilio said.
Since then, DeMilio said the county has been staying up-to-date with Mote Marine Laboratory & Aquarium and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission's red tide reports and updates.
For now, though, it appears the area is safe from red tide effects.
DeMilio said any red tide remnants seem to be offshore and the current wind conditions are keeping it that way.
“Everything’s offshore right now,” DeMilio said. “But then you can have a change of the winds. You can have westerly winds come in and then push things ashore.”
Currently, southeastern winds are keeping the red tide at bay.
“Wind direction is our friend,” DeMilio said. “In this case, we’re lucking out and our visitors are very happy.”
Recent reports from the Florida Department of Health showed no Karenia brevis cells — the organism responsible for red tide — in the area from Longboat Key down to Venice and Caspersen Beach. Those samples were last taken on Feb. 24.
Mote Marine’s reporting also showed conditions around mid-key were good on Feb. 28, with one report stating there were no dead fish and no respiratory issues that day.
Further south in Venice, Mote Marine Laboratory & Aquarium conducted the first field-testing of the organization's newly developed red tide mitigation tools on Feb. 14.
Two of the technologies — Mote’s Clear and Heartland Energy Group’s Xtreme — were used on an active red tide bloom in Venice canals. Mote collaborated with Heartland Energy Group and A-C-T Environmental & Infrastructure to mobilize and conduct the field testing.
Mote unveiled these technologies and more during a media event on Jan. 29.
Clear is a biocide developed at Mote which can be distributed anywhere in the water column to safely attack red tide blooms. Xtreme is a similar chemical that can be sprayed onto the water surface.
Mote scientists will continue to evaluate the canals on which the technologies were deployed to take water samples and collect data on the products.
