Manatees Need Protection To Survive

By FRANK LINGO

In the last two years, there has been an appalling die-off of Florida manatees. Almost 2,000 of the huge ocean mammals have perished on the shores of Florida in 2021 and 2022.

The Guardian covered the story in a Nov. 25, 2022, article. The manatees died mostly from starvation as their primary food, seagrass vegetation, was destroyed by pollution and habitat loss.

This was a preventable situation. In 2017, under the Trump Administration, the Fish and Wildlife Service (FHS) downgraded the status of manatees from endangered to merely threatened. Protections of species are more lax when designated threatened instead of endangered.

An alliance of advocates, led by the Center for Biological Diversity, has petitioned the FWS to restore the full protections of endangered status to manatees. Like most bureaucracies the FWS moves slowly to correct its mistakes. It could take a year to mull its response. In the meantime, many more manatees may lose their lives.

Commercial development has destroyed their habitats as human encroachment, as usual, gets full license to run rampant over any ecosystems in its way.

Besides development’s destruction, pollution from wastewater plants and runoff from herbicides like glyphosate have poisoned seagrass, causing astounding losses of this essential nutrient. Many other marine species need seagrass to survive, including turtles, crabs and lobsters. Seagrass also stabilizes the ocean floor and prevents erosion of the shoreline.

A bit of good news is that the public has helped in the crisis. People have donated to a feeding program that has provided over 200,000 pounds of lettuce where manatees gather.

But emergency relief can’t replace the once abundant proliferation of seagrass that has been lost. Tight controls of water pollution would be a big step toward restoring a healthy coastline ecosystem.

An Associated Press article from Nov. 21 quoted Patrick Rose of Save the Manatee Club: “Placing the manatee back on the endangered list would enhance federal scrutiny of projects and issues that involve manatees and bring more resources and expertise to tackle the problem. Re-designating manatees as endangered will be a critical first step in righting a terrible wrong.”

The FWS said that officials are “aware of the petition. Service staff will review the petition through our normal petition processes.”

That must be a great comfort to the manatees.

Frank Lingo, based in Lawrence, Kansas, is a former columnist for the Kansas City Star and author of the novel “Earth Vote.” Email: lingofrank@gmail.com. See his website: Greenbeat.world

From The Progressive Populist, January 1-15, 2023

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