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Webster to pay candidacy fee

TALLAHASSEE - State Sen. Daniel Webster said Monday he fell short of his goal of becoming Florida's first U.S. Senate candidate to get on the ballot by a petition drive.

He's still running, but he must pay a $9,282 filing fee to get on the ballot.

Webster, of Winter Garden, needed 93,024 signatures of Florida voters. When the deadline for submitting those names came at noon Monday, Webster was short of the mark. He said he didn't know by how much.

He said volunteers collected "tens of thousands" of signatures from people he said make up a grass roots statewide network of supporters. But working under a 90-day deadline, he said, the campaign ran out of time.

"We're getting bags full of mail from people we touched all over the state," Webster said. "We just didn't get them in time."

Webster, 55, is one of seven Republicans seeking the party's U.S. Senate nomination.

CAPE SAN BLAS - A mystery malady that killed at least 105 bottlenose dolphins in the Florida Panhandle apparently has ended, but an investigation into exactly what it was will continue, officials said Monday.

"We haven't had any new animals die now in over a week," said Ron Hardy, co-owner of Gulf World Marine Park at Panama City Beach and the on-scene coordinator of a team investigating the deaths. "Red Tide is still the No. 1 suspect." Red Tide is an algae bloom that kills sea life.

The dieoff began March 10 and the last death was reported April 3. Most of the carcasses were found in and along St. Joseph's Bay and nearby waters of the Gulf of Mexico surrounding Cape San Blas. A few, however, turned up as far west as Panama City Beach, about 50 miles from here.

Scientists have found high levels of brevetoxin, a powerful neurotoxin released by Red Tide, in the dead marine mammals' systems, but internal lesions usually associated with the poison have been absent.

"We still have a lot of unanswered questions," said Blair Mase, Southeast stranding coordinator for the National Marine Fisheries Service.