Manatees Get Help with Extra Feeding
Manatees, Facing a Crisis:
In a first, wildlife officials have decided to provide food for the mammals, which have suffered catastrophic losses in Florida waters over the last year.
By Catrin Einhorn – Dec. 7, 2021
The starving manatees are easy enough to spot. You can see their ribs through their skin. They surface to breathe more than normal. Those most in need appear off balance, listing to one side.
As manatee deaths spike and Florida rescue centers fill up with malnourished animals, federal and state wildlife officials are trying something new in an urgent effort to help the species through the winter: They will provide food, as needed, at a key location on the state’s east coast where hundreds of manatees cluster when water temperatures drop.
“This unprecedented event is worth unprecedented actions,” said Thomas Eason, assistant executive director of Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, at a news conference on Wednesday.
The decision is a fraught one, because scientists have found that feeding wild animals can do more harm than good. But Florida’s manatees, already threatened with extinction, have suffered catastrophic losses over the last year. Statewide, more than 1,000 have died in 2021, a record. (In 2016, about 8,800 of the mammals remained in Florida waters, according to state wildlife officials.)
2021 Has Been a Bad Year for Manatees
A joint task force of state and federal officials has linked the increased deaths to the loss of sea grass in the Indian River Lagoon, a 156-mile estuary where manatees, also known as sea cows, seek warm water in winter months.
The sea grass was killed off by algae blooms fueled largely by human waste and fertilizer runoff from lawns and farms, a problem decades in the making. As more people moved to the region and wastewater infrastructure aged, more waste leaked into the estuary, said Duane De Freese, a marine biologist and the executive director of the Indian River Lagoon National Estuary Program.
“The manatee situation is a symptom,” Dr. De Freese said. “In 2011, it appears we hit a tipping point.”
Since then, sea grass has died off year after year, he said, and is now down by about 90 percent. As climate change brings more severe storms and sea level rise to the region, the problem is expected to worsen.
A warming trend. European scientists announced that 2021 was Earth’s fifth hottest year on record, with the seven hottest years ever recorded being the past seven. A Times analysis of temperatures in the United States showed how 2021 outpaced previous years in breaking all-time heat records.
U.S. emissions bounce back. After a record 10 percent decline in 2020, America’s greenhouse gas emissions rose 6.2 percent in 2021 as the economy began recovering from the pandemic. The uptick underscored the challenges President Biden faces to fulfill his climate agenda.
Sounding the alarm.
A report on the state of the Arctic highlights troubling and consistent trends in the region that are linked to global warming. Researchers are also growing increasingly concerned about Antarctica, where ice shelves are melting and wilder winds are altering crucial currents.
The manatee feeding will be experimental and limited, officials said, and will likely provide leafy greens such as cabbage and lettuce. That’s similar to what manatees are given to eat when taken into captivity for rehabilitation, said Patrick Rose, the executive director of Save the Manatee Club, a nonprofit group that pushed for the supplemental feeding.
“We hope they will take it,” Mr. Rose said. “There’s no guarantee.”
The effort comes with risks. Boat strikes also kill manatees, so further habituating them to vessels or people could be deadly. The feeding program is expected to include measures to prevent that from happening, and to clean up any uneaten produce so that it does not fuel further algal growth.
Wildlife officials urged the public to refrain from feeding manatees. To help the animals, they said, locals should take measures to improve water quality, such as avoiding fertilizer and pesticides on their lawns, and switching from septic systems to a municipal sewer, or upgrading septic systems if that is not possible.
Research focused on other species indicates that wildlife feeding, while well intentioned, can disrupt migration patterns, spread disease and …
