Hurricane Milton was a category three hurricane that hit Florida’s gulf coast late Wednesday night. Many have taken into consideration what this means for the local Floridians and their houses. But not many have taken the time to consider the effects Milton had on Florida’s local marine life and what that means for the ecosystem and our resources.
The effects hurricanes can have on local marine life can vary from slight disturbance to barotrauma and beaching. Hurricanes of Milton’s size and category can disturb water 91.5 meters (300ft) below sea level.
Stated by ocean services, slow moving fish, turtles, and shellfish beds are often decimated due to the harsh undercurrents and rapid changes in temperature and salinity brought by the hurricane. This effect would be drastically increased considering that Milton was a category three hurricane.
Many of these fish from the deeper waters will experience barotrauma. Which is when a fish experiences a change in pressure causing injury, the change in pressure causes expansion of gases in the fish’s swim bladder. This can result in overinflation or a rupture of the swim bladder. This can result in fish being unable to return to their usual depths.
Coral reefs are also heavily impacted by the jarring conditions of hurricanes. Hurricanes force waves and underwater churn can completely strip coral of its living tissue according to Mark Patterson, a professor at northeaster’s marine science center. According to Paterson no main coral colonies should be directly hit by Milton but the bayside targeted by Milton does have much isolated corals including soft coral like sea fans.
Sea fans and other soft corals are highly daggered by Milton. Patterson says “corals are a fragile symbiosis” if you include a category 3 hurricane like Milton the coral doesn’t have a good chance of making through. This can have major lasting effects on the marine ecosystem sense coral reefs can take hundreds if not thousands of years to regrow.
The effect doesn’t end either when the hurricane passes storm run off has an effect on marine life as-well. Storm run off lowers the water quality as it mixes with the water, which can result in toxic algae blooms.
Algae blooms have two major ways of killing fish, forcing the oxygen load in the water down, and releasing toxins that kill fish claimed by Patterson.
Not all marine life is destined to be harmed or killed during the hurricane. Many marine animals like sharks, whales, and dolphins can sense the disturbance in the water prior to the hurricane and will flee to calmer waters temporarily.
Not all will choose to flee though. Babu is a hammer head shark that lives of the coast of saint peters burg right in the path in Milton, he was being tracked through Fahlo , when many noticed he wasn’t moving as Milton approached. Babu did survive Milton with minimal damage. So marine life can survive hurricanes, but it does have its damage.
Overall hurricane Milton is going to have lasting effects on Florida’s marine ecosystem which can overall harm Florida’s resources, but many local marine institutions have already started the work to minimize the damage it might have.