The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (WFC) notes ta6 of the 613 manatee deaths since January 1, 2021, over 30 percent have occurred in the Indian River Lagoon area, which starts in Volusia County and stretches 156 miles south, into South Florida.
Biologists with the WFC first began raising concerns in December 2020, when manatees began dying in the Indian River Lagoon, long considered the most biodiverse estuary in the Northern Hemisphere. It is also home to nearly one-third of the more than 6,500 manatees in the state.
One of the first clues noticed by biologists was that a large number of the rescued manatees from the Indian River Lagoon and down to the waters of Miami were found swimming sideways, according to behavioral ecologist and senior research scientist Monica Ross.
Swimming sideways often is an indication that a manatee has come in contact with a boat propeller or some other human-made object. However, the manatees encountered by scientists were not injured, they were emaciated, reports The Hill.
“The number of deaths continued to rise, and the number of rescues continued to rise,” said Ross. “Once it started to warm up, the FWC started getting a lot more calls of animals that were orphaned calves.”
“It’s presumed that some of these recovered carcasses are the moms, and now the calves are still sitting at these warm-water sites, waiting for mom to show back up, and they’re starting to become skinny and emaciated. So, they will be rescued,” Ross added.
On March 8, Rep. Stephanie Murphy, D-Winter Park, sent a letter to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, requesting the agency consider the situation a “Marine Mammal Unusual Mortality Event.” The letter resulted in a federal investigation being triggered by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) at the end of March, with more money and resources being directed to state agencies and environmental groups involved in rescues.
What is happening to the manatees?
The problem is very serious. Zoo Tampa is one of four designated manatee hospitals in the state, and by the beginning of April, it was at 95 percent capacity after taking in sick and injured manatees. Animal Care Manager Molly Lippincott said they’re seeing lots of injuries.
“To have this many come in in a short period is definitely unique for us,” Lippincott said. “We’ve had 15 come in since the beginning of the year.”
Lippincott says the gentle giants are threatened by cold temperatures, reduced access to food, red tide, and boat strikes. “I’m very concerned for the species as a whole,” she added, reports FOX13.com.
But there is one thing that biologists and wildlife managers agree on – The widespread manatee deaths have less to do with boating accidents and more to do with the worsening effects of climate change, particularly the higher frequency of algae blooms.
Algae blooms shade the seagrasses that need sunlight in order to grow. And manatees are herbivores that eat seagrasses in order to survive.
“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 a 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,” says Ross.
So, while the manatees gather for the winter months in warm water sites at power plants, their numbers are so large there isn’t enough food to go around. We can now add that manatees have been chronically exposed to the key ingredient in pesticides like Roundup, due in large part to fertilizer runoff.
According to a study by the University of Florida, scientists concluded that the chemical glyphosate 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.
Added to the plight of the manatees and humans, alike, is the crisis related to a massive wastewater facility. Over Easter weekend, hundreds of residents in Manatee County were ordered to evacuate their homes as officials feared that a breach might occur at the 300-million-gallon phosphate plant reservoir.
An average of 35 million gallons of the wastewater was pumped into Tampa Bay, much to the consternation of environmentalists and conservationists, worried that wastewater released into Tampa Bay will fuel an algae bloom that could impact coastal Southwest Florida.
Patrick Rose, executive director of the Save the Manatee Club, says that what is happening with Florida’s manatees should serve as a wake-up call for legislators about the effects of pollution in the state’s waterways.
“The manatees are again the sort of sentinel species that’s telling us something’s really broken here,” he said.
