IFOP performs red tide research. (Image: IFOP)

Red tide extension surprises scientists in Los Lagos

The Fisheries Development Institute (IFOP) is the responsible entity in Chile for the implementation of a national monitoring and control programme for harmful algal blooms (HAB) and marine toxins that cover the fjords and southern channels, including the regions of Los Lagos, Aysen and Magallanes.

The HAB corresponds to a proliferation of microscopic algae in aquatic environments, which can cause the fish massive death as well as that of a large variety of other organisms, contaminating seafood with toxins and altering ecosystems.

The impacts caused on humans and their activities include poisoning due to seafood consumption, which can be fatal; mass mortalities of marine organisms in the natural environment and breeding or fattening systems; alterations of coastal habitats and thus, impact on social and economic systems.

Dr. Leonardo Guzman explained that the work developed by IFOP professionals "is aimed at both monitoring to determine the distribution and abundance of harmful microalgae, and also detecting marine toxins, such as the execution of studies to gain a better understanding of these events."

Based on these studies and on addition information of its own, the Ministry of Health decreed health alert in the region of Los Lagos due to current levels of the paralytic toxin detected in shellfish, which exceeds the norm in different parts of the area. This implies that the extraction, marketing, processing, transfer and transporting shellfish (clams, mussels, choro, oysters, huepo, razor clams, razor clams, picoroco and trumulco snail) is prohibited in this geographical area.

"The bloom that began at the end of January in the Aysen region, caused by the dinoflagellate Alexandrium catenella, was gradually extending northward, covering the southeast sector of the Island of Chiloe, and reaching in mid-March the sector of the Desertores Islands within the inner sea of Chiloe," stressed Dr. Guzman.

"Progressively the health authority has been detecting the different places where the blooming is developed, the presence of paralyzing poison in the analyzed shellfish," he added.

Guzman stated that, unlike previous years, "it has been surprised by the extent of the blooming in the region of Los Lagos, as currently an extensive bloom on the open coast to the Pacific Ocean is taking place and entering the Canal de Chacao, with detections of the microalgae to the area of Mansa Bay in the province of Osorno".

In addition, he stressed that it is the first time that a bloom of this species is detected in the Pacific Ocean, since until now, all blooms of A. catenella had occurred in the fjords and inland waterways. He also said it is working to determine the boundary of northern extension of this microalga".

"Although there is no concrete evidence, the conditions that occurred during the summer, particularly benign ones, seem to be tied to the 2015-2016 El Niño event, which has shown an intensity even higher than those most intense El Niño events of the last century, in 1982-83 and 1997-98," concluded IFOP expert.

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- Camanchaca estimates impact of USD 5 million due to harmful algae

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