Red Tide hits Charlotte Harbor
Red tide causes large fish kill By ABC7 Staff | April 21, 2021 at 9:25 PM EDT - Updated April 21 at 9:25 PM
CHARLOTTE HARBOR, Fla. (WWSB) - If you spend any time on the Suncoast, you know the smell. And it’s a smell Claudia Cottrill knows all too well.
“I noticed there’s a lot of dead fish, just floating. A lot,” Cottrill said. She was visiting Punta Gorda for the day. “And it’s kind of sad, and the smell is. terrible.”
Red tide has made its way to another part of the Suncoast, and with it comes a large fish kill. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission confirmed to ABC7 that red tide likely caused the masses of dead fish to wash up on Charlotte Harbor’s shores. When testing the waters in Charlotte County, FWC found ten samples containing the red tide organism.