Blue-green algae alert | The Highland Council

Blue-green algae has been reported in Loch Moy, south of Inverness.

Contact with blue-green algae can have well being results for people and animals. The state of affairs is being investigated by Highland Council Environmental Health Department in partnership with NHS Highland Public Health Department and wider colleagues.

As a precautionary measure contact with the algal scum ought to be averted by folks and pets.

Notices will probably be posted subsequent to the loch warning that contact with the algal scum ought to be averted.  

• Blue-green algae exist in recent waters in Great Britain and all through the world; they’re observed when their concentrations enhance to type “blooms” and after they type scums – wanting like blue-green paint – or after they accumulate on the shore line.
• Some blue-green algae could give rise to antagonistic medical results – however not at all times. Effects on folks coming into contact with poisonous scums embrace pores and skin rashes, eye irritation, vomiting and diarrhoea, fever and pains in muscle tissues and joints. Toxic algae have brought about deaths of livestock and canine, waterbirds and fish. The actions presently taken are precautionary.
• The behaviour of algae is erratic.
• The degree of its toxicity can fluctuate; it might seem at some point, be dispersed by the wind and mixing and re-accumulate at any time.