(SB 198 and HB 349)

Environmental group says more manatees will die if Florida’s seagrass mitigation bill passes.

~ Ocean Conservancy

The proposed bill follows the deadliest year for manatees in Florida history.
Leaders of one of the country’s oldest marine conservation groups say a bill being considered by lawmakers would make it easier for developers to destroy seagrass that Florida’s manatees depend upon for survival.

Ocean Conservancy is urging Florida lawmakers to oppose the legislation. The bills (SB 198 and HB 349) would establish seagrass mitigation banks. That would allow a developer seeking permits for a project that would destroy seagrass to buy credits in a mitigation bank to cover the cost of seagrass restoration somewhere else. Theoretically, one acre destroyed would mean one acre built in another location.

But there are no guarantees, and seagrass restoration projects don’t have a great success rate. J.P. Brooker, Ocean Conservancy’s director of Florida conservation, said that’s especially concerning for Florida’s manatee population that depends on seagrasses for sustenance.

“Manatees are dying in record numbers in Florida, in part because we are losing so much seagrass and they are starving to death,” Brooker said. “Florida should be protecting and conserving established seagrass beds by improving water quality and planting new seagrasses.”

The House bill, sponsored by Merritt Island Republican Rep. Tyler Sirois, is nearly identical to a bill he tried to pass in 2021. That year also happened to be the deadliest year for manatees in recorded history. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission reported more than 1,000 manatees died last year. That’s double the five-year average. And most of those deaths were due to starvation from lost seagrasses.

“Seagrass mitigation banks are an unproven tool for curtailing the negative effects of development,” Brooker said. “They should not be viewed as conservation or restoration measures. They are solely an effort to offset the damage to seagrass caused by development.”

Florida has more than 2 million acres of seagrass along its coast and in its estuaries. But those numbers have been shrinking. Ocean Conservancy reports the Indian River Lagoon has lost 58% of its seagrass since 2009. Sarasota Bay has lost 18% over the last three years and Tampa Bay is down 12% since 2012. Manatees and other marine life depend on seagrass for food, and it also helps reduce erosion and improve water quality.

Brevard County Republican Rep. Randy Fine, whose district includes parts of the Indian River Lagoon, said in a December committee meeting that seagrass restoration efforts are too risky and too often fail for a mitigation bank to be counted on.

“Whether it’s a 75% failure rate as one speaker said or a 63% failure rate as another speaker said, I don’t care if it’s a 10% failure rate,” Fine said. “Because there is a 100% chance that initial acre of seagrass is going to have been destroyed. With a certainty of destruction (balanced by) a possibility of success. My county and my area, we can’t have that.”

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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 …

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