Copyright 1998 Stuart News Company
The Jupiter Courier (Jupiter, FL)
April 8, 1998, Wednesday
SECTION: A Section; Pg. A11
LENGTH: 872 words
HEADLINE: SICK FISH FROM THE OCEAN STARTING TO CAUSE CONCERN AMONG
ANGLERS
BYLINE: Debi Peltier Special to The Jupiter Courier
BODY:
STUART - Although the investigation into an epidemic of diseased
fish has focused on the St. Lucie River and Indian River Lagoon,
anglers are beginning to worry about ocean fish that are turning
up sick.
"I caught a bucketload of sick fish from the beach,"
Port St. Lucie resident Pete Griecko said Monday. "They were
whiting, and they had blood in their gills. One of them had lesions
on its side."
Leigh Demateis at the Department of Environmental Protection's
Marine Research Institute in St. Petersburg said there have been
reports of 25 species - including tuna, dolphin, whiting, tarpon,
sheepshead, croaker and blacktip sharks - with lesions, but only
six have been confirmed.
Those species are black and silver mullet, snook, crevalle
jack, black drum and sheepshead. The DEP has not received samples
of the other species, Demateis said.
Griecko said he thinks people are afraid to fish the rivers
and are moving to ocean or surf fishing. But he questions whether
those fish are safer to handle or eat.
Griecko said whiting he caught Friday at Blind Creek Beach
on Hutchinson Island were red around the gills and fins, "like
an infection was beginning to happen."
Ann Forstchen, a DEP biologist in St. Petersburg, said the
redness described by Griecko sounds like a problem different from
the lesions. But she said it would be difficult to speculate without
seeing the fish.
"There could be mechanical damage to the gills if there
is lots of silt in the water," Forstchen said Monday. "We
haven't had any reports like this until recently," she said,
adding that scientists there want to look into it.
Demateis said the agency's fish-kill hot line began receiving
reports of sick ocean fish in the past two weeks or so.
Officials have warned that fish should not be consumed unless
they look and act healthy. Bob Washam, Martin County's environmental
health manager, said people should avoid swimming where diseased
fish can be found and should wash carefully with a bleach solution
if they come in contact with the fish or water.
Water samples taken from seven popular swimming sites were
tested for harmful bacteria such as coliform, Washam said, and
only low levels were found.
"The tests came back pretty good. They were well within
the limits for swimming water," Washam said. "They were
real low for disease-causing bacteria."
Washam said he's heard vague reports of people coming down
with flu-like symptoms after swimming in the water.
"We probably need to track down some of these people,"
he said. "Any time you have one of these new diseases, you
want to keep an open mind to see if any kind of pattern is forming."
Caroline and Art Soka, winter residents on Hutchinson Island,
said they, too, caught a whiting with a lesion on its side.
"It was a perfectly round, concave lesion the size of
a dime," Caroline Soka said. "There's no way it could
have been a scar from a fight."
The fish was caught at Turtle Beach near the St. Lucie Nuclear
Plant about 1 1/2 weeks ago and taken to the Snook Nook bait shop
in Jensen Beach to be shipped to St. Petersburg, Soka said. Forstchen
said Monday that the fish hasn't arrived.
"We did get one report of a whiting late last week, but
no fish," Forstchen said. Since then, sick ladyfish, croaker
and tarpon have been reported. "We definitely would like
to see these," she said, noting that anglers can take the
ocean fish to bait and tackle shops where diseased river fish
are being collected. "We'll take anything that looks sick,"
she said.
DEP biologists are trying to determine what's causing the lesion
outbreak and have focused their efforts on the rivers. They hope
to learn more from anglers during Thursday's 7 p.m. town hall
meeting at Pinewood Elementary school in Stuart.
The DEP has scheduled another such meeting at 7 p.m. April
21 at Hidden Oaks Middle School's cafeteria in Palm City.
Although scientists suspect a microalgae, Cryptperidiniopsis,
is attacking river fish, they don't know what has induced the
normally benign organism to become toxic. In addition, there appear
to be other problems at work, Forstchen said. For example, two
snappers with tumors were caught off Six Mile Reef, she said.
Some tackle shop owners said they haven't seen ocean fish with
lesions. "I haven't heard anything about sick fish from the
ocean or surf," said Gordon Thornton of Gordo's Bait and
Tackle in Stuart. "One guy came in the other day with about
30 whiting and a bunch of snook, and all of them were healthy."
Thornton said he's the last person to say "there aren't
sick fish out there," but stressed "there's a lot more
healthy fish out there than sick ones."
He said more attention needs to be paid to possible solutions
in cleaning up the rivers because the negative publicity is "killing
us."
"All I know is, nobody's gotten sick here yet, and it's
been four months," Thornton said, adding that if something
isn't done soon to stem the flow of water from Lake Okeechobee
into the St. Lucie River, "there won't be a tackle shop in
Stuart."
Thornton suggests a solution similar to that used for the St.
Johns River, where marshy retaining areas filter runoff before
the water is drained into the river.
LOAD-DATE: April 8, 1998