The Environmental Struggles of the Manatee

In 2026. Nearly 60 manatees have died in Lee County due to cold stress caused by the winter water temperatures. This includes the deaths of over 30 sea cows at Manatee Park off State Road 80, which becomes a seasonal shelter for manatees who use the warm runoff from an oil plant to survive. So what can be done to help these staples of the Florida ecosystem? To learn more, we are now joined by Patrick Rose. He is the executive director of the Save the Manatees Club. Mr. Rose, thank you so much for joining us. Glad to be here. What was the reaction after you heard of the number of deaths at Manatee Park last month? Well, very, very concerned because this is something we try to plan for, to keep it from happening. There was an event over 40 years ago that sort of set the stage that power plants were not necessarily communicating with the proper authorities. But right after that event, actually, on the day the space shuttle, blew up. I was at that Fort Myers power plant, and we were there to capture and fit manatees with satellite transmitters. Subsequent to that, though, each of the power companies were required to implement manatee protection plans in order to prevent a situation that we found that day when there wasn't any warm water on that very, very cold January day. Unfortunately, with this particular situation, while backups were in place, they really were not sufficient to the requirements within those, backup plans weren't sufficient. And so we had, I think, additional mortality that we hope we can implement solutions to and never see an event like this again. From your perspective, what other steps could have been taken? Well, the where temperatures are taken is something that's being looked at and considered. I believe Florida Power and Light did meet their plans or their requirements within the plan, but clearly they weren't sufficient for such a cold duration. And I think that the air temperatures in addition to the water temperatures were quite an important factor. And so we're going to be looking at all of those things in coordination with Florida Power and Light, with the Fish and Wildlife Service and the Fish and Wildlife Commission, and really look at every aspect of this. The good part of it was, is that they did reach out when they were having, we're going to have to shut down the power plant in an emergency, in order to protect the facility, literally. And then they had in place, backup boilers that should have provided heat for the manatees. And even though they hadn't yet met the minimum temperature thresholds, I even believe there was some issue in getting those started as soon as they could, but they were, again, were within their requirements. And once they came online, it was a little longer than anyone had hoped that would happen. But they have been coordinated with and I know they're there as they have in the past. They're going to go the extra mile to help prevent this type of an incident in the future. Now, we have also reported, news of a recent blue green algae bloom in the Caloosahatchee River. What sort of threat does that pose for manatees? Well, if they're smaller blooms, it's not a really big deal. But I can give you an example of how terrible it can get. And so on the east coast of Florida with the Indian River lagoon. So just a few years ago, we suffered over 1100 manatees starving to death as a result of harmful algal blooms that were so great and covered so much of the habitat that we lost. Thousands of acres of seagrass and manatees were literally starving to death. So, the what happens is there's a lot of pollutants that both come from the, Lake Okeechobee that make their way east through the Saint Lucie Canal and west to the close to Hatcher River. So even how much pollution is coming from Lake Okeechobee can have an impact. Together with all the localized pollution and runoff that comes from failed septic systems, improperly treated wastewater, and then that cumulative effect of the water already being more polluted, that's coming literally from Lake Okeechobee, out through the clouds and out to the Gulf. This is also something that can exacerbate the red tide problems, because although red tide is not started by our local pollution, it can actually make it worse and persist longer. Can you, walk us through other threats that face the manatees? Yes, manatees. Probably their primary, most long lasting and future threat is really injuries and death from watercraft strikes that can come in the form of fast moving moving boat if propeller cutting the manatee up, and breaking ribs or just the impact. In fact, more manatees actually die from high speed impacts than die from the cuts and the propellers. But also large ships can crush them. They also can be crushed and have been crushed into the water control structures. And that deal with how water is moved around, how it deals with preventing flooding, and in the locks. When you're a such as we have in just a little north on the CLU, say hatchery, that helps to keep the river levels at certain levels. They can be crushed in those. A lot of effort has gone into retrofitting those structures to make them safer, but they're still not a perfect situation. And then, as we've talked about the pollution and the loss of seagrass due to increasing pollution levels, whether it's from the major harmful algal blooms or the transition from seagrasses to macroalgae, are also something the manatees have to contend with in terms of their amount of habitat that's available to them. And Mr. Rose in 2017, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reclassified the manatee from endangered to threaten. In the nearly decade since that decision. What have we seen happen in the manatee population? Has it helped? Well, no, it certainly hasn't helped. And in fact, we saw that horrible level of mortality on the East Coast in the Indian River lagoon. And we had warned the Fish and Wildlife Service and others that the situation was actually getting worse. And we were predicting something like that. Major harmful algal blooms that were were had already occurred, had already killed a lot of the seagrass, but that actually got quite a bit worse after manatees were down list. Whether that was a direct effect of the down listing. I'm not saying that, but I think it was a premature or down listing. It wasn't based in the best available science, and the trends and the risks and threats were not under control. And in fact, those risks and threats were increasing and getting worse. It's not to say that we don't have more manatees today than we get when they were first listed as an endangered species. We do. We have substantially more, but we've seen the benefits of the improved regulations and protections. Now they're starting to see these losses, to the manatee population after the recovery that had happened. And in fact, coming back to this event in Fort Myers, we are looking at the long term loss of these artificial warm water areas. And if we don't find appropriate alternatives to help wean them off of them, as we deal with climate change and the reduction in fossil fuel production and, and the creation of of CO2, we're going to find ourselves losing not one, you know, 50 to 60 manatees like we saw here. But we're talking about thousands of manatees are at risk in the future if we don't find the appropriate alternatives to protect them from the cold. In the winter times, the habitat they used to have available to them way back and before a really man came into the picture, a lot of the springs that did flow, even some of those in the in the nearshore areas, just don't flow anymore. A man has changed the environment for manatees and in springs so much that we have to course protect the springs we do have left, and we've got to make sure we don't over pump the aquifer, but we also are going to have to come up with some manmade solutions because the previous manmade, you know, changes to the environment have created a more risky future for manatees. How important what role do manatees play in the Florida ecosystem? I like to equate manatees like to the gardeners of the aquatic ecosystems. They they forage on the sea grasses, and they normally would just, you know, take the tops of the plants and so forth. Occasionally they'll go in and take a rhizomes or some of the roots, but actually that increases the productivity of these seagrass ecosystems. And in freshwater systems, again, they're primarily grazers. And they move around. And so they actually make those habitats more productive in the long run. And so they're they literally if we're going to be able to protect manatees, then we have to protect those aquatic ecosystems. So they're they're the real ambassador for whatever we can do to protect these gentle, you know, marine mammals and allow them to free range across their habitats, from freshwater to estuarine systems to nearshore marine systems. We're going to better protect those for every other reason humans think they're important, and other species like dolphins and sea turtles and the fishes and so forth. So they're really an indicator of how healthy an ecosystem is. And if we protect them, we protect that entire ecosystem. If we see a manatee in distress, what should we do? Absolutely. So you call the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission's hotline at eight (884) 004-3922. They will arrange biologists to come out and assess the manatee and if it needs to be rescued, if it's injured, sick or otherwise, then the immune to rescue and rehabilitation partnership, of which we're one of the founding members of that organization, along with the Fish and Wildlife Commission and the Fish and Wildlife Service, will rescue that manatee and bring it in to one of the partner facilities. Just recently, there have been several manatees rescued in the Lee County area associated with the power plant issues. They've gone to SeaWorld and Zootampa, for example. They're both partners in the Manatee Rescue and Reliability Action Partnership. Mr. Rose, is there anything else you'd like to share today? Well, I would like to reach out to voters in particular, and one thank them for when they do see an injured or sick manatee and do call that number and oftentimes wait and then residents that live along the waterways have maybe just seeing something out of their backyard. We've we've been running over 100 and some manatee rescues a year. That's not possible. And that someone calls and reports that. And I also just so I really want to thank people for looking out and and to if they want to learn more about manatees they can go to save the manatee.org and learn more about them. And we'd be happy to keep them informed. And we again appreciate people that do see a sick or injured manatee and call in for that to be assessed and rescued. They are very special and beautiful. And thank you so much for sharing your information today, Mr. Rose. Thank you. Thank you Jennifer.