When I was a photo-id intern at the Florida Marine Research Institute, I got my hands on some footage from a program on manatees. One scene featured a blonde presenter in the necropsy lab saying, "This manatee is so badly decomposed, it's actually hissing from the gases." Just then, the surgeon made his first incision. Using that footage, Ty Carlisle and Randy Olson of the Shifting Baselines Ocean Media Project and I cut this little video. It's a dire time politically for manatees. Have a look.
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Jennifer you bad girl, you've been corrupted by the evil Randy Olson!
Great video, great conservation pitch. Way to go.
I wanted to say this was heartbreaking, but that is not funny...
Ewwww. Was that manatee killed by a boat? Gasses accumulating in decomposing marine mammals is common and natural, just google 'exploding whale.' :)
I grew up in Florida and I used to work at Mote Marine Lab in Longboat Key a few years back, specifically on manatee research with Hugh and Buffet (manatees). I've followed the press regarding the potential downgrade keenly, and after the most recent delay (by Crist, to gather more evidence) I'm quite hopeful that the boat lobby will not succeed in their challenge.
Not that it really matters for their survival, in the end. There's so many boats in Florida, and growing, that even with special protections, the manatee is still living on borrowed time. I'm sad to say that...I grew up hanging out with them at Silver Springs and Blue Springs. But the battle for the Florida waterways is one that the manatee will eventually lose.
I want more! Was that the end of the footage?
Shelley - why so pessimistic? They're still holding out hope for the Yangtze River dolphin. If that lonely creature can still be hanging in there, there's got to be hope for the manatee.
Manatees are not endangered- there are more than twice the number there were three years ago. This is from the FWC surveys, not some fly-by speculation.
Time to downlist.
I menat 20 years ago, not 3.
It's true the numbers of manatees have doubled over the last two decades but whether or not 3000 animals is adequate to delist them calls into question what the 'baseline' ulitmately is. Many scientists I've spoken with have speculated manatee numbers were unfathomably high in the past (manatees have no natural predators). But we will need further research into this question before we can speak confidently on their historical abundance. Here is further information on threat analysis to the manatee. Probability of outright extinction is low but we can expect further declines. Personally, I'd rather see fewer motorboats...
When I was an intern, I participated in a study to monitor boater speeds through manatee zones. I watched many Saturdays as cigarette boats ignored the signs and blasted through the canals (while pontoon and sailboats never did). The ESA is one of few legal precedents for prosecuting this type of reckless and inhumane behavior. I saw many manatees at the nec lab splayed out like slinkies across the table all because a boater couldn't slow down and take 5 extra minutes on his recreating Saturday. Sheril's right. Nature is not simply a numbers game. There is an element of decency, too.
My pessimism stems from first-hand experience both with the people killing the manatees (speedboats) and the impotent regulatory means to stop them. One of those groups has a lot of money and the other doesn't--the whole "downlisting" brouhaha is completely funded by the Boat and Dock lobby in Florida.
Saying that the numbers of manatees has doubled in the past 20 years is an extemely misleading piece of information also propagated by that same boat lobby. 20 years ago there were about 1500 and now there are 3000. Wow. Considering there used to be perhaps hundreds of thousands, thats a blip. The sad fact is that the florida waterways cannot sustain more than that under the current conditions. Futhermore, if you actually read the study by the FWC, the scientists themselves admit a huge flaw in the study is the inability to determine whether a manatee has been counted more than once, since it was done with aerial means over several weeks, and manatees migrate.
In addition, there were record deaths just last year of manatees, under the so-called adequate protections. Sounds like their doing a great job, lets relax them. Yeah.
And as for the Yangtze river dolphin, it was already declared extinct. A recent sighting suggests there are still a few left, but as someone who's parents live in China and has seen the level of pollution there, I can bet it wont survive long. The pollution will only get worse, as will the development and number of boats, and they don't even have the lame regulations that we do here.
Sorry if I'm a pessimist, but the inability of people to admit and rectify the immense harm they cause to the environment has shocked and hardened me.
To simplify the heated and thoroughly drawn out debate over manatee recovery into some cutesy animals vs. evil man is a gross oversimplification both from a scientific and economic perspective (sorry but you have to have both in this one).
No one knows how many manatees there were. Power plant proliferation has caused a formerly migrating animal to stay year round in places it was not supposed to be. Seagrass has been negatively impacte din areas where these manatees are unnaturally congragating.
I'm sorry but an animal that has recovered over twice its numbers is not in decline and should be relisted. There was even a recent paper , I'll have to look for it, that showed manatees could lose half their current population and not be in danger of extinction.
You are right in that there are more than numbers. But numbers are integral here- the cost of increased law enforcement on the water in a state that has a $1 billion dollar budget shortfall and a plan to reduce taxes even more. The cost of increased monitoring at the behest of an overfunded "non-profit" group, again with declinging budget. THe shifting away of law enforcement and scientific priorites away from real issues like commercial fishing poachers and drunks on the water.
The Save the Manatee club and their cronies have turned this into a cute mammal vs. evil fishermen/boater cause that has done nothing to address real issues and concerns about manatees, boater safety, and habitat issues surrounding this debate. All it has done is kept this group's coffers filled with cash. When the biological reviews came out over five years ago showing increases in manatee numbers, even after a devastating red tide, the STM club downplayed it. Well here we are five years later and the numbers are stable- no dramatic decline
I wish people would give half a care over the declining world fisheries and stormwater/nutrient runoff (two FAR MORE pressing marine environmental concerns) as they would over an aquatic elephant.
On a second read, my above post sounded a bit vitrolic- not the intended tone! Just fostering debate.
I'm a fisheries economist and I agree that the cost of monitoring and enforcement is often not accounted for by conservation organizations....However, SD, your "twice the population" argument is so off, it's frustrating. If there were 4 animals 10 years ago and today there are 8, is that ok? Of course not! But it's wonderful because your post is a perfect example of shifting baselines, as Jennifer alluded to above. If the baseline was 1500 animals, then yeah, 3000 is great. If it was 30,000 however, then we aren't doing so well. Humans need to be aware that our actions have consequences, that is the role of these NGOs. Why should speedboater's needs come before those that enjoy the manatee? Because you think it's worth more to the economy? That's an unfortunately shortsighted argument.
Well said, Megan. Let's hear it for case studies in shifting baselines. Like this one, probably.