Red Tide Has Likely Killed a Million Fish in Galveston
Photo by Tony Reisinger/Courtesy of Parks & Wildlife
Dead redfish along the shores of the Brownsville Ship Channel during a red tide in September 2011.
A red tide in the Gulf has killed nearly a million fish on the beaches of Galveston, according to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. The fish — most of them Gulf menhaden, but some species of catfish as well — are washing up on the Galveston and Surfside beaches, as well as the Bolivar Peninsula.
The department says that they haven’t seen any red tide on aerial flights over the upper or lower coasts, but that “does not mean that the red tide is gone, but rather that cell counts are not high enough to discolor the water.”
Samples taken at other Texas beaches, like Mission Bay and Padre Island, haven’t turned up any red tide, either.
