Florida Can Kiss Tarpon, Redfish & Snook Goodbye With Rising Sea Levels

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With global warming expected to trigger a 15-inch rise in sea level by the end of the century, will Southwest Florida's famed Ten Thousand Islands turn into A Few Hundred Islands? Not quite. But a new report predicts that saltwater and freshwater marshes will disappear and, with them, snook, tarpon and redfish and the anglers who chase them.

"That's one of the most popular fishing areas in the state," said Patty Glick, senior climate change specialist with the National Wildlife Federation and one of the report's authors. In 2005, saltwater recreational fishing generated nearly $413 million in retail sales in Collier and Monroe counties, according to the report. Armed with computer models, the National Wildlife Federation and its Florida chapter tried to guess what would happen to coastal habitats if the sea rises 15 inches by 2100. That estimate comes from a 2001 report issued by the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The authors spotlighted nine sites in Florida that are popular fishing spots, including Ten Thousand Islands, Tampa Bay, Biscayne Bay and Charlotte Harbor.

A 15-inch rise in sea level wouldn't submerge many of the 10,000 or so islands between Marco Island and Chokoloskee, Glick said. That didn't happen until a consultant ran a model with 26 inches of water, representing the Intergovernmental Panel's worst-case guess. As saltwater creeps farther inland, mangroves will follow, leading to a 16 percent gain. In turn, freshwater marshes will decline by 44 percent and a striking 80 percent of the dry land will become wet. At a current pace of 2 millimeters a year, sea level rise is rather undetectable, even to longtime anglers. But Pat Kelly, who has spent nearly 40 of his 57 years fishing around the Everglades, swears that the rise "is going to happen."

When the salt marshes flood, young fish and crabs will lose their home, Kelly said. Global warming will lead to more prevalent red tide blooms, the fish-killing, cough-inducing algae that has menaced Southwest Florida's beaches in recent years, Glick wrote.

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