Fish kill spares Destin

Mounds of dead fish may have washed up on nearby Okaloosa Island, but Destin appears off the hook.

Last weekend thousands of rotting menhaden, a baitfish, coated local shores. This has some experts pondering causes, and wondering whether or not we are going to see the fish kills spread.

Lately, there has been a problem with jellyfish in Destin waters. They appear to have pulsated away from shore, and it doesn’t look like there are any stinky situations on the horizon.

“I heard of the problem on the island, but we haven’t seen anything over here,” said Dane Henderson, a member of the Destin Beach Safety Patrol.

Usually, red tide is the culprit, as it was last summer and fall, but experts seem to think that it is too early to raise any red flags. Last year, officials said red tide was the worst they had seen in a decade.

“It is probably a fluke,” said Patrick Gault, assistant director of the Emerald Coast Wildlife Refuge. “There are so many factors that could have contributed to this.”

“It could have been June grass or a changing of the tides from the hurricane in the gulf,” Gault added. “Anything that could have disrupted the food chain. So far, only the one species has washed up.”