Click HERE to sign the petition!
WildlifeVOICE has spent the better part of August, 2018 working with a small team, investigating all aspects of the red tide ecological management disaster in Florida. We have stumbled upon a significant, yet overlooked, source of the issue which we aim to expose. This cause of the red tide is a constant nutrient stream, feeding and polluting Lake Okeechobee. Luckily, we believe it can be stopped immediately with ease! We stride that, together, we can stop feeding the red tide and reduce the death of birds, mammals, reptiles, and fish!
The red tide, in our opinion, is very much like a small campfire. Under normal conditions, it could be easily managed. However, we are equivalently dumping millions of gallons of gasoline onto this small fire, burning Florida and all its wildlife to the ground! We must stop the fuel that is feeding this fire. In fact, stopping this fuel will save the state of Florida from wasting money, reduce unwanted nutrients being added to our ecosystems, save precious wildlife, while ensuring the health and welfare of those individuals living in affected coastal communities.
Our own Florida government, through the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC), is spraying poison into our lakes, rivers, canals, and even Lake Okeechobee in an effort to kill an invasive aquatic plant called hydrilla. Monday through Friday, 40 hours a week, for the last 40 years, these waterways have been doused with harsh herbicides. The active ingredient in these sprays is Glyphosate! This chemical name may sound familiar, as this is the same active ingredient that Monsanto was recently sued over in court. The trial found Monsanto guilty of using an ingredient known to cause cancer and the company was forced to pay nearly 300 million in settlement costs.
Hundreds of permitted contractors are all over this state and they continue to spray to this day. With this, the spraying continues to poison our aquifers, the source of 90% of Floridians’ drinking water.
As stated by the FWC’s website, 714,000 gallons of glyphosates and other herbicide were sprayed in just 2015 alone.
Here, Dr. James Douglas, Professor of Marine and Ecological Sciences at FGCU, states his perspective on how this is affecting our red tide:
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If hydrilla, as well as the other plants that are being unintentionally killed, were to remain alive, our ecosystem would remain intact and it would naturally filter the nutrients every single day!
Dr. Geoffrey Norris, geologist and algae fossil specialist,states, “Glyphosate is of particular concern, since it has been used heavily in the agriculture areas around Lake Okeeechobee and upstream in the Kissimmee River watershed for at least 25 years. Glyphosate provides a source of phosphorous for blue green algae and recent research shows that it enhances the growth of blue-green bacteria and actually become tolerant and absorbs glyphosate directly.” He further states, “Because blue-green algae can make their own supply of nitrogen, they only need other important elements to survive and one of those is phosphorus.”
To support to this cause, please sign and share this petition below! You can also help us spread the information and petition through your social network platforms!
https://www.change.org/p/florida-stop-the-state-sanctioned-poisoning-of-our-lakes-and-rivers
Save Florida,
The WildlifeVOICE Team
Sharks are a keystone species in our ocean’s ecosystems and need to be protected and left alone at all costs. In our day and age of shark fin soup, shark populations have decreased significantly all around the world. An ocean without sharks is a dead ocean.
Due to the demand for shark fin soup and being that shark populations are heavily on the decline, it is extremely important at this point in time to stop all forms of shark fishing, especially shore fishing. Shore fishing may just be “catch and release”, but most sharks do not survive after they are put back into the water. Most shark’s organs are crushed under their own weight when they are pulled up onto land. They are not designed to be out of the water at all.