Dead fish turning up on Southern California coast amid red algae bloom

REDONDO BEACH—The large red algae bloom spanning from Los Angeles to Baja that tinted coastal waters a rusty brown and turned waves neon by night, is now starting to degrade and is causing fish die offs in some places. In mid-May, dead fish were reported in Redondo Beach’s King Harbor, lagoons in San Diego County and around the Baja coast. “We don’t have a way to monitor that extensively at every beach so we’re kind of relying on people to send us reports,” said Clarissa Anderson, the Executive Director of Southern California Coastal Ocean Observing System or SCCOOS. “It’s not going to be a continuous stream all the way down; it’s going to be patchy.” Also known as a red tide, a bloom occurs when a particular species of phytoplankton begin reproducing rapidly, resulting in millions of cells in each gallon of water. While red tides are not unusual in Southern California, particularly in early spring and later summer, not all phytoplankton species produce visible blooms such as this. SCCOOS said what was unique about the recent event was the incredibly high biomass that led to a very intense red/brown water during the day and the bioluminescence at night for weeks on end. SCCOOS said...