Thread: Feds now investigating alarming rate of manatee deaths in Florida

MERRITT ISLAND, Fla. - Florida manatees are dying at an alarming rate and the issue is finally getting the attention advocates say is long deserved.


"We’ve been stressing to them that there are problems in the Indian River Lagoon area for many years," said Save the Manatee Club Executive Director Patrick Rose.


Now, the federal government is stepping in to help. Since U.S. Congresswoman Stephanie Murphy sent a letter to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Commission (FWC), the organization has since classified the sharp increase in manatee deaths in Florida as an unusual mortality event. That means Fish and Wildlife will now do its own investigation and throw additional funding at getting down to the cause.


"We still need a much better idea on how those remaining manatees are doing, and we need more manatees that have died to be necropsied so we can better understand more fully their cause of death," Rose said.


The FWC reported earlier this month that more than 400 manatees died across Florida so far this year, many of them in Brevard County. Last year at this time, only 85 had died statewide.


Advocates believe pollution is causing algae blooms that ultimately shade and kill seagrass, which the manatees live off of. But more research needs to be done, and now with federal help, they’re hoping it finally will.


"I do say that this is one of those times when they got caught off guard and they should have done a better job. We’re on our way to working out what’s the best strategy from here."


Federal government now investigating alarming rate of manatee deaths in Florida

They are kind of the dodos of the modern world. Simply not equipped to deal with mankind.

600 manatee deaths in Florida raise concerns over sustainable habitat

As of April 2, a total of 613 manatees had died since the beginning of the year, nearly eclipsing the 637 manatees that died in all of 2020. If the current death rate continues, the state could surpass the record of 830 manatee deaths set in 2013.

What biologists and wildlife managers have deduced is that the widespread manatee deaths have less to do with boating accidents and more to do with the worsening effects of climate change — specifically the higher frequency of algal blooms.

Ross described algal blooms as a shade covering the sun, creating a barrier between the seagrasses that manatees need to feed on and the source of light the marine plants need to grow.

“Any kind of submerged vegetation needs sunlight to survive — just like grass, or any kind of tree. When you have an algal bloom there are very tiny particles that, when there's high concentration of them, basically act like a cloud. They're shadowing what is underneath them so they aren’t able to get any light, so when you have the entire water column full of these tiny particles, then what is underneath just dies.”

The decline in seagrass habitat is what’s causing manatees to starve, and biologists say that has led the animals to gather in larger numbers around artificial warm-water sites, like power plants, without enough food for all of them to survive.

"The timing of the deaths is associated with manatees aggregating at warm-water sites, and we believe there's an interaction between large numbers of manatees at these warm-water sites and food availability," Gil McRae, director of the FWC's Fish and Wildlife Research Institute, told members of the Florida Senate Environment and Natural Resources Committee last week.

A new study has also shown that manatees have been chronically exposed to the key ingredient in pesticides like Roundup, due in large part to fertilizer runoff. The study by University of Florida scientists concluded that the chemical was found in the plasma of over half of the 105 manatees that were analyzed between 2009 and 2019. According to the study, the concentration of the herbicide has “significantly increased” in Florida manatees over the past decade.

“The situation in Florida presents a significant threat to all manatees and marine life as it is all connected,” says Jamal Galves, an associate research biologist at the Clearwater Marine Aquarium Research Institute in Belize. “A majority of the threats that plagued the Florida manatees over the years have become real threats to the Antillean manatee subspecies here in Belize.”