Florida’s Manatee Crisis: Unprecedented Number Could Starve to Death This Winter
Decades of human-made water pollution are stripping the marine mammals of their food supply as the manatee death toll continues to rise.
Hundreds of manatees have already died off the coast of Florida this year in what scientists are calling a human-made famine. At least 841 of the marine mammals have died in waters near the eastern state between January and July, already surpassing 2020’s year-long figure of 637.
Now, as manatee deaths continue to rise, wildlife management authorities fear that there could be another huge die-off this winter.
"This is an unprecedented level of mortality," says Patrick Rose, an aquatic biologist and executive director of Save the Manatee Club. "This year alone, we have lost a number equal to 10 percent of the population. This can't happen again."
Scientists believe that the loss of seagrass is to blame. Seagrass is a dense, green marine plant that plays a vital role in ecosystems. It filter water impurities, stabilize the seabed, and provide habitat to various marine animals. Florida has nearly 2.5 million acres of these marine meadows, the largest of any state, but decades of water pollution from farming and real estate development are causing them to die out, according to scientists. This is having a deadly knock-on effect for manatees who rely on seagrass for food.
The Indian River Lagoon, a 156-mile-long estuary, is at the heart of the crisis. It was formerly home to nearly 80,000 acres of seagrass beds and was thought to be North America's most productive estuary, but 95 percent of the seagrass has been lost in the last ten years, according to Rose.
When manatees gathered in the lagoon for warmth last winter, they couldn't find enough seagrass nearby to eat, according to Rose. Trapped by frigid water temperatures but unable to find enough to eat, the manatees were forced to make a choice. “They literally had to choose between dying of cold stress or dying of starvation,” Rose told Florida Politics.
The deaths of the manatees is causing another problem, too: orphaned calves. Unable to fend for themselves, the calf population in captivity has more than doubled this year.
"One thing that's unique to this particular event that we haven't seen before is a number of motherless calves," McRae said. "These calves require a great deal of care and they often have to be bottle fed and it can be two years until they're ready to be released from captivity."
An estimated 6,500 to 8,500 manatees live in Florida. In 2017 their status as an endangered species was changed from "endangered" to "threatened", but in light of the alarming death rate, activists are pushing for increased protection once more.
"Manatees are beloved, iconic mammals in Florida, and we should be doing everything in our power to protect them and ensure their continued survival," Buchanan wrote in a June letter to the principal deputy director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. "Considering the number of manatee deaths so far this year, redesignating the manatee as endangered, which provides for the highest levels of federal protection and conservation efforts, is critical."
An Unusual Mortality Event was declared in March of this year, which allows the federal government to investigate the cause of the deaths in partnership with the state. And as winter approaches, experts are scrambling to prevent another round of deaths.
"We're working to expand the facilities and we're doing that in case we have more mortalities this winter," said Larry Williams, a manatee biologist and expert for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the federal agency charged with protecting endangered and threatened animals. "There are a very high number of abandoned calves. So preparing for next winter, we're working with groups to expand and make sure they have the permits."
But the decimation of the seagrass is “just a symptom of a system under extreme stress”, says Duane de Freese, executive director of the Indian River Lagoon Estuary Program, an agency that works to protect the waterway. Florida’s water quality issues have been brewing for years and experts say there’s no quick fix; with this ecosystem pushed to the brink, it will take decades to reverse the problem.
Tune in the the Species Unite podcast on Thursday 12 August to hear from experts on Florida’s manatee crisis.
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