Toxic tides: Risks from harmful microalgae
Published on by Water Network Research, Official research team of The Water Network in Academic
There is a need to step up monitoring of our coastal waters for harmful algal blooms as they pose public safety concerns and economic risks.
ON the morning of Feb 11, fish farm operators in Tanjung Kupang, Johor, woke up to the ghastly sight of fish floating belly up in their pens in the Straits of Johor. In the days that followed, the fish kept dying.
The fish kill lasted two weeks, at the end of which commercially valuable stocks of snappers, estuary cods, seabass and threadfins in some nine farms were wiped out. One operator reported losses of RM150,000.
The mass mortality has since been blamed on a harmful algal bloom (HAB), or what is commonly referred to as red tide, a sudden population explosion of a toxin-producing microalgae.
Details can be seen here
Media
Taxonomy
- Toxins
- Algae
- Aquatic Environment