Alarming manatee death toll in Florida prompts calls for endangered status

The advocates, led by the non-profit Center for Biological Diversity, insist the US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) made a critical error in 2017 by prematurely downgrading the status of the giant aquatic mammals from endangered to merely threatened.

The move, they say, removed crucial federal protections to the species, sometimes also known as the sea cow, and allowed an almost unchecked decline in numbers after a previous revival.

During 2021, 1,015 manatees were killed, according to the Florida fish and wildlife conservation commission, largely through starvation as pollution and habitat loss destroyed huge areas of seagrass vegetation they rely on for food.

Another 745 deaths have been recorded this year to 18 November, a two-year drop in numbers that represents 19% of the Atlantic population, and 13% of all manatees in Florida, the alliance states.

Environmentalists blame pollution from wastewater treatment plants, leaking septic systems, fertilizer runoff and other sources for poisoning waterways where manatees were once abundant, and killing off seagrass.

Particularly affected is Indian River Lagoon, where the alliance says more than half of sampled Florida manatees are chronically exposed to glyphosate, a potent herbicide applied to sugarcane and aquatic weeds.

Discharges from Lake Okeechobee containing glyphosate have also resulted in higher concentrations of the herbicide in the Caloosahatchee and St Lucie rivers, the advocates say.

Savannah Bergeron, an eighth-generation Floridian and student attorney at the Harvard animal law and policy clinic, said restoration of an endangered status for manatees would be an important first step.