Manatee Advocacy Groups Celebrate Major Win In Effort To Save Sea Cows

FLORIDA — In a legal agreement with the Center for Biological Diversity, Defenders of Wildlife and Save the Manatee Club, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has committed to revise critical habitat for the Florida manatee by September 2024.

The action came after the three conservation groups filed a lawsuit in May in federal court in Orlando to force the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to protect manatees and sea turtles from Florida’s water pollution.

The groups were seeking to require the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to reengage in talks with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service about water quality in Florida's Indian River Lagoon, which has been the site of numerous manatee deaths in 2021 and this year.

The manatee’s critical habitat has not been updated since its original designation in 1976.

“Safeguarding the places where manatees live will help put these incredibly imperiled animals back on a path toward recovery,” said Ragan Whitlock, a Florida-based attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Protecting the habitat of these magnificent creatures is long overdue, but we’re happy these safeguards will soon be in place.”

A record-setting 1,100 Florida manatees died in 2021, and more than half of the deaths were due to starvation caused by water pollution in the Indian River Lagoon that has killed off seagrass beds, the manatee's main food source. This represents a loss of more than 10 percent of the Florida manatee population.

This trend has continued into 2022, as harmful algae blooms and the loss of seagrass and warm-water refuges continue to shrink the sea cow's habitat. Since Jan. 1, 588 manatees have died in Florida waters.

Ragan said unchecked pollution in the Indian River Lagoon — which supports more species of plants and animals than any other estuary in North America — is fueling the toxic blooms.

“Hundreds of manatees are dying in the Indian River Lagoon as the water quality plummets, and the EPA must confront the massive nutrient pollution behind this disaster,” said Whitlock.

“This agreement is a vital first step toward ending the mass manatee deaths that have become all too common along Florida’s coasts,” said Jane Davenport, senior attorney at Defenders of Wildlife. “Once the species’ current critical habitat is identified, we’re hopeful that federal, state and private conservation partners can take decisive action to put the manatee back on the road to recovery.”

“The (U.S Fish and Wildlife Service) service has delayed revising critical habitat for a decade, and now the manatee’s predicament is so dire that revising critical habitat can no longer be put on the back burner,” said Patrick Rose, aquatic biologist and executive director of Save the Manatee Club. “We are pleased that FWS is finally willing to take this essential step to save our imperiled manatees and hope this signals a shift in prioritizing manatee survival and recovery.”

The three conservation groups petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 2008 to revise critical habitat for the Florida manatee. In January 2010, the wildlife service agreed that revisions to critical habitat were warranted, but failed to act for more than 12 years.

Animals with federally protected critical habitat are more than twice as likely to be moving toward recovery than species without it because federal agencies that fund or permit projects in critical habitat are required to consult with the service to ensure this habitat is not harmed or destroyed by their actions, Rose said.

In addition to the loss of its main food source in the lagoon due to nutrient pollution, manatees died in 2021 when Florida’s Gulf coast was plagued by red tide that Rose said was fueled by the Piney Point phosphate plant disaster in Manatee County, in which millions of gallons of toxic wastewater spilled into Tampa Bay and the gulf, killing more than 30 manatees.

Demanding EPA Enforce Water Quality Standards

The three nonprofit marine life advocacy groups are also demanding that the EPA enforce water quality standards set in 2009.

The groups contend that the standards are not being "adequately followed or enforced," allowing wastewater treatment plant discharges and runoff from leaky septic systems and fertilizer to pollute the bay, leading to the deaths of manatees, sea turtles and other marine life.

Under the 2009 federal Clean Water Act, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection set limits for runoff containing nitrogen and phosphorus. However, new studies show that daily data for discharged limits haven't taken climate change impacts into account.

“This failure harms manatees, green sea turtles, loggerhead sea turtles, smalltooth sawfish and other ESA-listed (Endangered Species Act) species that depend on the health of the ecosystem," the lawsuit said.

Groups Claim Endangered Species Act Is Being Violated

The three conservation groups filed a separate lawsuit in February in federal district court in Washington, D.C., claiming the Fish and Wildlife Service violated the 1973 Endangered Species Act by failing to reinitiate required talks on water quality and failing to take action on a 2008 petition to revise the "critical habitat designation for ensuring the survival and effectuating the recovery of imperiled species such as the Florida manatee.”

In 2017, the Fish and Wildlife Service changes the designation for manatees from endangered to threatened under the Endangered Species Act.

“Endangered” means a species is in danger of extinction throughout all or a significant portion of its range.

“Threatened” means a species is likely to become endangered within the foreseeable future.

“The carnage from 2021 should remove any doubt that Florida’s waters are in crisis,” said Jaclyn Lopez at the Center for Biological Diversity. “With these sweet creatures dying in record numbers, the Biden administration needs to act fast to protect manatee habitat from further destruction.”

See related stories:

• Manatee Deaths Focus Of $30M Rescue Effort In Florida
• Manatees Are Dying In Record Numbers, But Help May Be On Way
• Rescued Manatee Sickened By Red Tide Under Care At ZooTampa
• Deaths Of Rare Sea Turtles, Manatees Attributed To Red Tide Toxin
• Record Deaths Of Manatees Prompt Urgent Need For New Rehab Center
• Manatee Deaths Surge In Florida, Experts Say Starvation Possible
• $3.5M In State Funds To Go To Building Manatee Rehabilitation Pools

“In less than one year, after many decades of conservation progress, we lost over 10 percent of the Florida manatee population,” said Elizabeth Fleming at Defenders of Wildlife. “Without immediate action, the unprecedented manatee deaths of 2021 could become an annual occurrence. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service must stop these preventable deaths before recovery of the species is set back even further.”

“The service's failure to protect the manatees’ critical habitat along with its biologically unjustified downlisting from endangered to threatened under the ESA left imperiled manatees to suffer the deadly consequences of agonizing, yet preventable, mass starvation,” said Rose. “More troubling is the fact that the FWS acknowledged more than a decade ago that updating critical habitat is essential to the conservation of the species. There can be no justification for further delays.”

Praise For Governor's Funding For Manatees

In the meantime, all three conservation groups offered rare words of praise for Florida's Republican governor for his historic state funding for manatee rescue and habitat restoration.

“I am exceedingly grateful for Gov. DeSantis’ commitment of more than $30 million in the Fiscal Year 2022-23 budget to enhance and expand manatee rescue and rehabilitation efforts and provide habitat restoration for areas where manatees are highly concentrated," Rose said. "Due to the unprecedented severity of the ongoing "Unusual Mortality Event" in which more than 1,600 manatees have died statewide over the last 16 months, these and additional extraordinary measures are called for in order to protect manatees and their critical habitat."

On Thursday, DeSantis also pledged a record $20 million of the state's newly approved $109.9 billion "Freedom First" budget to enhance and expand the state's manatee acute care facilities and to restore spring access and habitat restoration in manatee concentrated areas.

However, Rose said it's going to take cooperation between the state and federal government to improve Florida's water quality enough to prevent the deaths of manatees, sea turtles and other marine creatures. That's something Gov. Ron DeSantis has been loath to do under the Biden administration.

"While Florida’s decades-long battle with degraded water quality and a series of harmful algal blooms was given a shot in the arm this legislative session, we must insist that the state of Florida and the Environmental Protection Agency join forces to ensure that improved water quality standards are set and met if we are going to restore these aquatic ecosystems for the long-term future," Rose said.

The Florida office of the national, nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity is located in St. Petersburg. The Save the Manatee Club is based in Maitland. And the Southeast division of Defenders of Wildlife is based in Asheville, North Carolina.