Every year seaweed comes rolling in from the gulf to wash up in piles on the beaches. The brown seaweed is called Sargassum
and is actually a type of brown algae. It’s a pain for beach visitors and some fishermen but it’s important because of the habitat it provides. There are lots of little crabs and fish that live in the floating rafts. In deeper water big fish hang out under the floating rafts of plants. If you look carefully at some that just washed up on the beach you might find a few tiny critters still hanging on.
From what I read
, this year has brought more seaweed on shore than most. Bulldozers work feverishly to pile up and remove the stuff and hall it off to keep it from stinking up the joint and chasing away the tourists.
If left to it’s own devices it would pile up, trap sand, reduce beach erosion, help build the dunes provide food for crabs, attract flies and stink up the join (at least for a while). So is it good or bad? Like pretty much everything else, it’s both.
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