Manatees are dying in droves because declining water quality is conspiring with algae blooms and other factors to kill off seagrass, the marine mammals’ main food supply, experts say.
By Oct. 1, 959 dead sea cows, as they’re known, had been documented, more than any full year on record, according to state stats. The previous record is 830 manatees that died in 2013 after being exposed to red tide toxins, Treasure Coast Newspapers reported in July.
The current crop are starving to death for lack of seagrass.
“Unprecedented manatee mortality due to starvation was documented on the Atlantic coast this past winter and spring,” Florida’s Fish and Wildlife Research Institute wrote when announcing the July numbers, which even then had already surpassed those of any other year. “Most deaths occurred during the colder months when manatees migrated to and through the Indian River Lagoon, where the majority of seagrass has died off.”
There are anywhere from 7,500 to 10,200 manatees on both Florida coasts, the state estimates. Looming colder weather could kill more.
“There is a huge sense of urgency,” Gil McRae, director of the state Fish and Wildlife Research Institute, told The Associated Press. “We’re uncertain how long it’s (high manatee deaths) going to be.”
Declining water quality due to fertilizer runoff, wastewater discharges and polluted water that is increasingly diverted on purpose from Lake Okeechobee to coastal estuaries is part of the problem, but just the beginning. The manmade pollutants muck up the water with algae blooms thick enough to cut off the sunlight that seagrass needs to survive.
More than half, or 58%, of the seagrass has been lost in the Indian River Lagoon, state estimates show.
The state is contemplating feeding them, though that normally nets people hefty fines. The Center for Biological Diversity and other conservation organizations plan to sue the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service “for failing to revise outdated critical habitat for Florida manatees,” the groups said in a press release in August.
While manatees have been federally listed as endangered since 1966, that was downgraded to “threatened” in 2016. The conservation groups want to see the endangered designation reinstated.
With News Wire Services
