When Ever I Think Of The Sargasso Sea,

I picture something like the illustration below,

illustration National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, a floating haven for so many species, the Sargasso Sea is named for the sargassum seaweed that creates its unique ecosystem, this sea has been called a golden floating rainforest, it is a haven of biodiversity and there is growing recognition of the crucial role it plays in the wider North Atlantic ecosystem as habitat, foraging and spawning grounds and as a migratory corridor, endangered European and American eels migrate to the Sargasso to breed, wahoo, tuna and other pelagic fish forage in and migrate through the Sea, as do a number of whale species, notably sperm whales and humpbacks, the Sargasso Sea supports a range of endemic species and plays a critical role in supporting the life cycle of a number of threatened and endangered species such as the Porbeagle shark, the American and the European eel, as well as billfish, tuna and several species of turtle, migratory birds and cetaceans, the sargassum mats are home to many endemic species and provide a protective ‘nursery’ for juvenile fish and turtles, all very environmentally benign, but it does have a dark side, when the sargassum clashes with the coast,

photograph by Cayman Islands Department of Environment, and this happens, Troy Leacock spotted the landfall in Grand Cayman’s North Sound one July afternoon, and had by morning transformed into an enormous carpet that engulfed boats and extended nearly 100 meters into the bay, “It’s not like we never see any sargassum there,” says Leacock, a Cayman Islander who runs private boat charters in the North Sound. “But you never get that huge carpet, not like what we saw that day.” within a few days, the rot kicked in. Fish floated to the surface. Wind compacted the seaweed, pushing ashore a stench so foul that it cleared the parking lot of Ron Hargrave’s restaurant, Tukka West, “The water actually bubbled,” Hargrave says. “I’ve been on the island 24 years … I’d never seen fermenting water in the ocean before.” and it looks like it is only going to get worse,

video by Brian Phelps, from July 29 to August 1, workers using an industrial pump removed more than 260 square meters of decomposing seaweed from the sound with little success, the pump was just no match for the sargassum mats. The sargassum, said Jennifer Ahearn with the Cayman Islands’ Ministry of Sustainability and Climate Resiliency in a press release, had “degraded to the point where pumping it out [was] no longer feasible.” currently, the Cayman Islands has no national sargassum response plan. The story is the same across much of the Caribbean. Around the region, local entrepreneurs are coming up with creative solutions. In Barbados, for instance, sargassum is transformed into organic compost, while in Jamaica the seaweed is fed to goats and turned into charcoal for barbecues, I had no idea something so benign could present such a flip side, in the North Sound, a gateway to a 3,500-hectare mangrove wetland and critical breeding ground for marine life is especially in danger, “It’s imperative that we remove it before it hits the coast,” Leacock says. Once the sargassum gets ensnared by the mangroves’ tangled roots, he says, “it’s game over for removal.” What a terrible dilemma for all concern, the above is from an article by Jade Prévost-Manuel, if you would like to read the full article have a look here.