THE regional office of the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) warned the public Tuesday morning, January 17 not to eat, gather and sell any seafood from Balite Bay in Mati City, Davao Oriental.
This is after the laboratory results on the water sample from Balite Bay conducted by BFAR showed there is an alarming growth of red tide microbes in Balite bay.
BFAR Regional Director Fatma Idris told VoxPop Davao, in an interview Tuesday, that public should refrain from eating, gathering, and selling shellfish, fishes, crabs and other seafood found in the bay to avoid sickness or worst, death.
“Local warning from BFAR 11 (Davao Region) lab is being issued for the alarming growth of Pyrodinium Bahamense - microtoxin - red tide carrying microbes present in Balite Bay, Davao Oriental,” she said adding that there is about 1,000 cells per liter detected from the water sample.
She explained for the bay to be declared safe, the water should not exceed above the regulatory limit set at 10 cells per liter of sea water and 60 micromilligrams saxitoxin per 100 milligrams of shellfish meat.
Last January 3, BFAR announced the Balite Bay is free from the paralytic shellfish poison or red tide toxin, thus, seafood from the bay is safe for human consumption according to the shellfish bulletin number 39 released on December 28, 2016.
At present, BFAR is still waiting for its central office to issue a red tide shellfish bulletin.
It was previously reported Balite Bay tested positive for toxic red tides according to shellfish bulletin 06 dated March 2, 2016.
Red tide occurs when algae rapidly increase in numbers to the extent that it dominates the local planktonic or benthic community.
Blooms are caused by environmental conditions that promote explosive growth.
Such high abundance can result from explosive growth caused by a metabolic response to a particular stimulus or from the physical concentration of a species in a certain area due to local patterns in water circulation, warm sea surface temperatures and high nutrient content.
