Federal Officials Agree to Upgrade Protected Florida Manatee Habitat for the First Time in 50 Years

Rocio Muñoz-Ledo

(CNN) – The US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) will update its critical habitat protections for manatees for the first time since 1976, due to an agreement reached Wednesday between several organizations. nonprofit and the FWS.

The Center for Biological Diversity, along with the Save the Manatee Club and Defenders of Wildlife, have been petitioning the agency to update its protections for manatees for more than a decade, Ragan Whitlock, an attorney with the center, told CNN. Reviewing critical habitat is a crucial step in implementing much-needed environmental protections for the species, Whitlock said.

“The FWS, over a decade ago, told us these reviews were warranted,” Whitlock said. But the agency did not update critical habitat protections due to budget constraints and prioritization of other projects, according to the attorney.

“Essentially, the manatee was left in the background for more than a decade,” he said. “We’re glad the FWS is once again making them a priority, because the manatees couldn’t wait any longer.”

Florida manatees are listed as “threatened” under the federal Endangered Species Act, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. The large aquatic mammals are closely related to elephants and feed on underwater vegetation such as seagrass.

They distribute more than 1,300 kg of lettuce per day to save starving Florida manatees

Whitlock explained that the critical manatee habitat protections are essentially a “list of places we knew manatees inhabited,” created in 1976.

“Not only has that list of places changed a lot in the last 45 years, as the environment changes, what it means to designate critical habitat has also changed,” Whitlock said. “In 1978, two years after those original designations, the Endangered Species Act was amended. Now, all critical habitat designations require the service to identify physical and biological features that are essential to the preservation of the species.”

In the case of the manatee, Whitlock points to seagrass and access to warm springs as critical habitat features that must be protected to protect manatees. In recent years, manatees have experienced a series of deaths from starvation due to the loss of the seagrasses they usually rely on for their livelihoods.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission describes this increase in manatee deaths, beginning in 2020, as an “unusual mortality event.” In 2021 alone, 1,100 Florida manatees died, about 13% of the total Atlantic population, Whitlock said.

Whitlock noted that an especially crucial habitat is the Indian River Lagoon, located on Florida’s Atlantic coast. Manatees have “loyalty” to the places where they once foraged and will return again for food, even though the lagoon seagrass has seriously diminished.

Almost 1,000 manatees have died in Florida in 2021 0:50

They are “starving to death in this lagoon,” Whitlock said. “That is a big problem”.

Access to the warm-water habitats that manatees need to survive is also important, according to Whitlock.

The FWS must propose new critical habitat reviews for the manatee by September 2024, according to the agreement. In the meantime, Whitlock hopes the agency will use “the best available science to find where manatees depend on, places that are absolutely critical to their survival, features that are critical to their survival.”

“The manatee has a long road to recovery. He’s had a bad last couple of years,” Whitlock said. “This is a really important first step to that recovery. You cannot protect the manatee or give it a chance at long-term survival without protecting its home.”

And it’s likely that protecting manatees will also help protect other threatened and endangered species.

“When you protect an area for the Florida manatee, it has an effect on all of the endangered species that call Florida home.”

The-CNN-Wire
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