SEA SLUGS DOWN BY THE SEA SHORE: Phenomena worries beach dweller; officials say there's no cause for concern

Scientist Diana Ferrell patrols the beaches of South Walton on a regular basis. During her last trip, she found something unusual.

“Look, there’s another dead sea slug,” she said during a walk on Rosemary Beach with The Sun, pointing to a small black blob lying on the beach.

“They’re everywhere,” she said.

Ferrell then proceeded to collect the slugs along with what she identified as a few small tar balls. She plans on sending them to a lab where they will be dissected and tested.

Ferrell, who has a degree in environmental studies from Rollins College, has been collecting data on the beaches for a year now. The sea slug anomaly bothers Ferrell, who believes these bottom feeders’ death are linked to last year’s oil spill and the chemical dispersant used on the oil.

“The entire marine ecosystem has been altered from the spill, and consequently, algal blooms develop, dissolved oxygen in the area is depleted, and organisms, such as these, sea hares (or slugs), either become diseased or simply die,” she said.

But not everyone is willing to link the slugs to the spill.

Gary Wise, beach safety director in South Walton, said he has seen this happen before.

“Obviously these guys are brought in by the currents,” he said. “It happens from time to time, usually about once during the season. Whether it is about this time I can’t be sure, but we are monitoring it right now. We don’t have a cause at this point.”

According the The Sea Slug Forum, a web site where individuals can ask questions, post information, or find out more about these sea critters, mass mortality of sea slugs, usually sea hares, can be linked to pollution, but it is often a natural phenomenon.

But Farrell is a skeptic and says, “even though it can be natural phenomena, I believe there is an even greater amount of algae blooms appearing in the Gulf now as a result of the chemicals that were dumped in the Gulf.  The marine bacteria feeding upon the toxic algae die out and then this causes a trickle down approach through the food chain. The sea slugs consume the algae and the amount of chemicals in their system is actually magnified in the diseased mollusk.”

Although the case of the dead sea slugs is still open, Wise said, “we have no reason to be concerned.”