I've heard of animals disappearing before an earthquake, so I'm guessing critters fleeing the Gulf means we're about to get farked, Chicxulub style.

I want to see an aerial picture of this.

"Hi. We're the fauna, and we are soooooo out of here."

That's rather... ominous.

Could someone please explain 'red tide' in words smaller than the wiki entry uses? I grew up in Chicago, and while I can tell you all about Lake Michigan I don't grok this 'ocean' thing quite yet. I understand that 'red tide' = bad, but not the why.

Unavailable for comment.

Um, well, maybe they finally discovered Texas?

/Please don't shoot me

Did they even consider the possibility they were summoned by Aquaman?

geeze, first fish swimming.. what's next?

Florida tag?

That's just north of me about an hour! yikes, guess I won't be going to the beach today

De Red tide consumes all the oxygen in the water

strangeguitar: Did they even consider the possibility they were summoned by Aquaman?


THAT'S WHAT I'M SCREAMIN!!!!

Does this exodus involve the parting of the Red (Tide) Sea?

Piscatorial and ectotoxicology, both in one article. I'm learning a new vocabulary.

abe vigoda unavailable for comment...

If fish have an "exodus" does that mean that their leader gets to summon God to part Florida? Are we going to have Hebrew fish settling in the "Promised Waters" off the Bermuda coast? Is this the beginning of thousands of years of undersea strife and persecution?

they flopped back into the water to rejoin the piscatorial parade south.

I do believe I've found my Word of the Day. (With some nice alliteration, too!)

Main Entry: piscatorial
Pronunciation: "pis-k&-'tOr-E-&l
adj: of, relating to, or dependent on fish or fishing, also "piscatory"

Etymology: Latin piscatorius, from piscari to fish, from piscis

/obviously the Vogons are here.

Ninja cats know things we don't.

Ah, good, the Earth is about due for total extinction.

Just AdBlock it fellas. Hmmm pictures of SbB girls potentially NSFW or my job...nuke it!
/just sayin

So, has anyone found out what "ectotoxicology" means? It's not in Yahoo's online reference.

It sounds like something from GhostBusters.

What about the writer's name.....that's a little fishy...

"Don't go in there, he might be 'Gavin' Off'".......

It's the end of the world as we know it (and I feel fine)

"EXODUS! movement of jah fishes"

soze

red tide

It's a high concentration of microscopic organisms that changes the oxygen-hydrogen-other stuff balance in the water, making it "unbreathable" or toxic to the fishies. Makes for great photography tho...

I think we are dealing with multiple definitions of "Red Tide"

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&hs=gvN&lr=&c2coff=1&safe=off&client=firefox -a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&oi=defmore&q=define:Red+Tide
(or type 'what is red tide' - without quotes, into google)

In the northeast, red tide causes trouble with toxins in bivalves (clams). Those definitions are talking about everything from algae to plankton, toxins and oxygen depletion. It sounds like there are about 4 different types of "red tide", according to those definitions. Sounds like different regions call different things "red tide".

I wonder what's going on down there?!!

I have to send my first born to a university down there in the Gulf (in 2 weeks)...

Should I be scared?!

I hate when girls expect you to go surf in a Red Tide.

I had one call it "Going Moses", or parting the red sea.

there is no problem in the gulf
there is no problem with pollution
there has always been and will always be plenty of clean water and land
to exploit
those who say different are just hippy communist devilworshippers trying
to bring down this great country
that is all

You forget that I was present at the first mass undersea, unexplained sponge migration.

Maybe it was this guy coming ashore:


Or maybe it means the coming of a previously unheard of Cat 6 hurricane (which I just now made up). *sigh* I'm sooo sick of hurricanes...

/Tampa bay farker

Too early for Rio Mardi Gra.{Feb.8}

Candygram4Mongo: Ahhh, that's better...


That was pretty amazing actually. Nice call.

:D

Red Tide is akin to pollen sprays in the water. It is a generic term and is used for a phenomenon rather than the exact type of organism dispersed into the water. It's been unusually high this year no one really has a good explanation for this extra large "bloom". I believe that the meteorlogic conditions of competing weather fronts and early onset of the hurricane season may be in some way involved. The gulf temperature is also dangerously high right now here in the St Pete area it's 93, which is higher than last year.

PC LOAD LETTER:

I hear that the mouth of the Mississippi is devoid of any marine life. Is this an extention of that?

Venice, LA (mouth of the Mississippi) is probably the best place in the gulf to offshore fish. I dont think thats a problem. Inshore (river) fishing, may be.

/shameless plug: www.ibfn.org
//kudos: been waiting months to farkit the best nick on fark.
///: obligatory redundant slash

Yikes... I was planning to go to the beach this afternoon. I think I'll rethink.

It's Bush and the Republicans! The bastards!

Somebody went under a dock
And there they saw a rock
But it wasn't a rock...

Tried to look it up in the dictionary and on wikipedia. It seems "ectotoxicology" is not a real word!

Ectotoxicology appears to be the misspelling of ecotoxicology which is as follows

Main Entry: ecotoxicology
Pronunciation: "E-kO-"tk-si-'kl-&-jE, "ek-O-
Function: noun
Inflected Form: plural -gies
: a scientific discipline combining the methods of ecology and toxicology in studying the effects of toxic substances and especially pollutants on the environment ecotoxicological /-k&-'lj-i-k&l/ adjective ecotoxicologist /-'kl-&-j&st/ noun

Scientists -- usually by nature and always by training -- are reluctant to speculate about the causes of natural phenomena without the benefit of observation and concrete data.

Was that clause really necessary?

That whole article was poorly written. And lacked pics. Etc.

Red tide:

According to a study sponsored by the National Association of Fish-Killing Chemical Manufacturers, a panicked exodus of fish out of the Gulf is nature's way of spreading coastal species into new deep-water environments.

It's part of Bush's Pristine Oceans Initiative.

theolinc

"EXODUS! movement of jah fishes"

How would Rastafarian fish keep their weed dry?