Florida’s iconic manatees are in danger. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission said last week that as of May 21 almost 750 manatees have already died this year. Why? They are starving to death.
The number of manatee deaths so far this year is on course to exceed the high of 804, set in 2018. Sadly, there are only around 7,500 Florida West Indian Manatees left in the wild.
According to Earther, the manatee population could take a really hard hit this year if the die-offs continue at the rate they are going now, with some experts predicting the death toll to surpass 1,000.
A major culprit appears to be water pollution, reports CNN. Runoff of fertilizer, toxins, and microplastics leads to the formation of algae blooms that wipe out seagrass, the manatees’ main source of food.
Florida has been plagued with severe algae blooms over the past few years. Blue-green algal blooms, which are caused by nutrient-rich runoff from agriculture and other industries are becoming a “normal” sight in the canals, bays, and rivers.
The red tide algae blooms, a natural occurrence, have also gotten worse, due to toxic discharges and other pollutants. In 2018, the red tide was so bad that major fish kills forced beaches to close.
The issue is particularly pronounced in the Indian River Lagoon, an inland estuary the manatees have long visited and where 58 percent of the seagrass has vanished since 2009.
According to the St Johns River water management district, too much runoff, specifically nitrogen and phosphorus, is either killing the seagrass outright or blocking the sunlight it needs to grow.
“The vast majority of the once 80,000 acres of seagrass within the Indian River Lagoon have been lost to a continuing series of harmful algal blooms, which have themselves been caused by decades of human nutrient pollution from wastewater and runoff that continues unabated to this day,” Bob Graham, a former Florida governor and co-founder of Save the Manatee, said in an editorial published by the Tampa Bay Times.
The Orlando Sentinel unleashed a blistering editorial recently that blamed former Gov. (and current US senator) Rick Scott for loosening environmental rules. “And you folks who joke smugly about ‘tree-huggers’ and their oh-so-silly proposals—have you smelled the stench of manatee carcasses in Brevard County, ground zero for the die-off with nearly 300 rotting along the waterways?”
