November marks Manatee Awareness Month, a time to be extra considerate and informed about Florida’s sea cows as they face urgent threats and need help perhaps now more than ever.
Manatee deaths in Florida topped 1,100 in 2021, according to data from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission which has also counted more than 700 deaths since the beginning of 2022. Both years saw manatees starving with a lack of seagrass to eat.
“We had decades of reasonably good news for the manatees that took them from under 1,000 in population upward to 8,000, but they’re facing new and severe challenges almost every day now,” said Patrick Rose, executive director of Save the Manatee Club, noting the widespread recovery of manatees that began in the 1980s.
Current problems are largely posed by ecosystem collapse in the Indian River Lagoon in particular, which has lost tens of thousands of acres of seagrass.
“For decades, we had so many more times the amount of vegetation and forage for manatees than the population could ever need or want to consume,” Rose said. “Sadly, over this last decade, that’s really changed. In 2022, we had hundreds and hundreds of manatees literally starving to death because there was not enough for them to eat.”
This past year, 149 manatees were rescued and rehabilitated by partner organizations while officials from Florida’s FWC and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service fed lettuce to manatees amid dire times. At this point, it’s unclear if the feeding program will resume this year.
Despite the harrowing risks facing sea cows in recent years, Rose said he’s encouraged by the club’s collaborators and recovery efforts.
“I’m really heartened by all the partners that are working together to help restore the Indian River Lagoon,” he said. “We’re looking at planting sea grasses or planting other species of bivalves like clams and oysters that help clean up the water.”
Manatee Awareness Month began in 1979 when Gov. Bob Graham gave November such a designation, bringing about manatee protection zones and a new public awareness campaign. He also helped co-found Save the Manatee Club with singer Jimmy Buffett in 1981.
The collective action and cooperation between state, local, federal and private entities helped manatees rebound to reach an estimated population of 7,000-10,000 in recent years. But seagrass loss caused by human pollution and algal blooms has quickly posed a dire threat to the survival of sea cows.
“We’ve allowed growth and development to outpace the ability of the environment to keep up. The extra pollution loading leads to algal blooms,” Rose said. “We’ve mortgaged our environmental future for decades and kept building up a greater debt until Mother Nature is in the middle of foreclosing right now, but we can still turn it around.”
Those who are interested in learning more and pitching in can adopt a manatee or explore myriad resources, actions and campaigns on the Save the Manatee Club website. In addition, Rose and his team hope to continue to promote safe recreation on the water, pointing to mortality statistics from boat collisions and propeller scars that many manatees bear.
“We want to give people the tools and knowledge to know how they can have fun on the water, enjoy fishing and recreational activities, but still do it in a way that’s safer for manatees,” he said.
To learn more about activities and resources, visit savethemanatee.org.
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