Ft Myers Pier Fish

For years my family and I have vacationed down in Ft Myers, Florida to visit my grandmother who lives there during the cold Michigan winters. Our favorite spot to visit while in Ft Myers has always been Ft Myers Beach as we love to take in the sun and ocean. For me, one hobby I have especially enjoyed when visiting Ft Myers Beach is walking to the end of the pier to observe the ocean and the fisherman fishing off of the end of the pier. Several years ago, when we first started coming to Ft Myers and I took up my hobby of observing the fisherman I was always amazed at the plethora of sea life in which the fisherman would pull up from the depths: sea trout, stingrays, ladyfish, saltwater catfish, Spanish mackerel, and even the occasional shark. In addition, almost daily one could observe a pod of dolphins swimming around the pier. However, when I visited Ft Myers just this past December of 2017, I couldn't help but notice the lack of abundance of sea life around the pier in which I had always known. I sat at the end of the pier as I always have, observing the ocean and fisherman, but this time there was stark lack of sea life being caught by the fisherman. I sat on the pier for about half an hour, and other than a couple of small bait fish being caught, none of the fisherman managed to catch any of the exotic species of fish I had been used to seeing on the pier. I returned the second day to once again and observed a similar pattern of lack of exotic sea life. On the second day, I observed a lone dolphin swimming in the shallows near the pier, however a group of beach goers made their way in the water towards the dolphin in order to try and get a close look which inevitably only chased the dolphin back into deeper waters away from the beach area. It was for sure very unsettling to see the development of this environment from a haven for an abundance of sea life to an area scarce of the animals it has always been home to.