Sarasota County Red Tide Update

Red Tide Update - March 14

County regularly performs beach raking at Siesta

and Lido public beaches

Sarasota County Parks Recreation and Natural Resources staff perform regular beach maintenance including beach raking throughout the year.

Here's the standard weekly schedule for beach raking:

Siesta Beach:

Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays

Lido Key:

Tuesdays and Thursdays

When resources are available, routine mechanical beach raking as a maintenance operation will continue to occur. Please note, this is different from fish-kill-related beach cleaning.

Red tide is present at Sarasota County beaches. The results from morning monitoring by Sarasota County Parks, Recreation and Natural Resources (PRNR) show improved conditions for most beaches throughout the county with most showing slight to no impacts. Lido Key is most impacted.

Due to equipment issues, today's regular raking operations were shifted from Lido Key to Siesta Beach. Raking on Lido Key has been rescheduled for tomorrow, Wednesday, March 15, and the regular beach maintenance schedule is set to resume Thursday, March 16.

Each morning, PRNR staff evaluate county public beaches and access points to determine if red tide impacts and marine debris wash-up meet the beach cleaning policy threshold. If accumulated marine debris meets the threshold, mechanical or manual (hand picking and/or rakes) are deployed.

Lido Key on March 14. For additional photos, click here.

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Red Tide Dashboard

For the latest conditions, please visit the Red Tide Dashboard by clicking here. Please call 311 or use the 311 app to bring potential concerns to our attention.

Beach Conditions

Check beach conditions at ourgulfenvironment.net and visitbeaches.org.

FWC Red Tide Status By Phone

Call 866-300-9399 from anywhere in Florida to hear a recording about red tide conditions throughout the state. Callers outside of Florida can call 727-502-4956. Reports are updated on Friday afternoon except during holidays when the report will be released on the closest day. If available, additional information is provided on Wednesday afternoon. To receive an email when the current status has been updated, click here.

Learn more about red tide and access additional related links at scgov.net/redtide.

HOW TO REPORT RED TIDE IMPACTS

For manatees, dolphins, whales and marine turtles, call the FWC Hotline at 1-888-404-3922. Be prepared to describe the location of the animal and take a picture, if possible.

An FWC biologist will return the call to get additional details as well as the picture, if available.

For all other types of fish, call 800-636-0511.

VIDEOS

Department of Health-Sarasota: Red Tide Effects (Recorded March 9 by Sarasota County Communications.)

Videos courtesy of Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission

HELPFUL RESOURCES

Sarasota County

Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission

DOH - Sarasota

Daily Beach Conditions

Tourism and travel alerts

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Sarasota County Government

1660 Ringling Blvd.,

Sarasota, FL 34236

Call 311

TTY: 7-1-1 or 1-800-955-8771

To sign up for these red tide newsletters, which are being sent every Tuesday and Friday, click here.

Sarasota County prohibits discrimination

in all services, programs or activities. View the complete policy at www.scgov.net

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