Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
MANATEES' BIGGEST THREAT
Manatees are shy, utterly peaceful mammals that are, for all intents, the poster children
of Floridian environmentalism. They look like obese seals with vaguely elephantine noses.
Back in the day, sailors apparently mistook them for mermaids and sirens, which sug-
gests these guys had been at sea for entirely too long.
Jokes aside, the manatee is a major environmental concern for Florida. Pollution is a
problem for these gentle giants, but their biggest killers are boaters, and of those, the
worst offenders are pleasure boaters.
Manatees seek warm, shallow water and feed on vegetation. South Florida is surroun-
ded by just such an environment, but it also has one of the highest concentrations of
pleasure boats in the world. Despite pleas from environmental groups, wildlife advocates
and the local, state and federal governments, which have declared many areas 'Manatee
Zones,' some pleasure boaters routinely exceed speed limits and ignore simple practices
that would help protect the species.
After grabbing a bite, manatees come up for air and often float just beneath the sur-
face, chewing and hanging around. When speedboats zoom through the area, manatees
are hit by the hulls and either knocked away or pushed under the boat, whose propeller
then gashes the mammal as the boat passes overhead. Few manatees get through life
without propeller scars, which leave slices in their bodies similar to the diagonal slices on
a loaf of French bread.
There are several organizations throughout the state that rescue and rehabilitate in-
jured manatees, but they're fighting what would appear to be a losing battle. Some of
these organizations include
Save the Manatee
(
www.savethemanatee.org
)
and the
Miami Seaquarium. Divers, animal experts and veterinarians of Seaquarium's Marine
Mammal Rescue Team patrol South Florida waters, responding to reports of stranded
manatees, dolphins and whales. While the Seaquarium's program has been successful,
pleasure boaters still threaten the manatees' survival. In 2010, the Florida Fish & Wildlife
Commission reported that 83 manatees were killed by watercraft.
In February of 2011, a man was charged with killing a nursing manatee mother while
speeding his boat through a slow-water area. He was put on probation for a year and had
his boat seized by authorities. The ruling was welcomed by conservationists, but de-
cisions like this are few and far between - the speeder was caught in the act of killing the
manatee, but most such incidents are not reported.
