Nobody wants to see manatees harmed. Boaters and fishermen all want to protect the manatee, but the boating community of Florida disagrees with the recently announced settlement between the coalition of environmental organizations and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
People who spend time on the water feel that a no growth no entry policy for the environment is both wrong and unrealistic.
The settlement is not in the best interest of boaters and it is not in the the best interest of the manatee.
Some boaters propose the following steps be taken to protect the manatee.
Study Deaths
We do not know what is causing a rising number of perinatal deaths, or what kills up to 75 percent of the dead manatees discovered each year. If we were serious about species health each and every carcass found would have tissue and organ samples screened for pollutants and disease. When animals are determined to be water craft fatalities, extensive analysis should be done to determine the size of the craft, the type of craft, and what might be done to alleviate the major contributors to these causes. We need an aggressive program to find out what is killing the manatees whose deaths are classified "un-determined."
Study Water
Research should be under way to study the long-term effects of artificially augmenting a wild population of animals with an artificial habitat alteration &emdash; warm waters discharges from power and sewer plants. Determine if artificially warmed water is affecting the animal's immune systems and altering the natural migration patterns of the species.
Track
Satellite tracking and land based manatee tracking devices are available and should be employed. We must determine migration patterns and the range manatees are traveling. Manpower must be expended to follow the manatee populations and enforce current laws in areas where concentrations have been sighted.
The news media should play a role in informing the general public about large manatee concentrations.
We also need research to investigate auditory warning devices for larger craft, and forward-facing sonar on smaller boats.
Monitor
Monitor water quality with a focus on channeling highway run-off and fertilizer run-off away from waterways and critical habitat. Prohibit additional phosphate mining in locations where the run-off feeds into manatee areas. Water in critical habitat areas should be analyzed on a regular basis to check for pollutants and harmful bacteria. We feel that no one knows the population carrying capacity of the aquatic vegetation throughout the State, or how much area of seagrass a manatee needs per day to survive. Ongoing research should determine how many animals can survive on existing sea grass beds which also nurture other species indigenous to our waters.
Count
The environmental experts do not know how many animals there are, or how many there used to be prior to early settlers. Current counting methods rely on spotting manatees from airplanes. That method is subjective and arbitrary at best, and the results only reflect a percentage of the overall population.
