Manatee Insanity Lives Up to its Name

From Florida’s first legislation protecting the manatee – passed in 1893 to protect the gentle sea cow from hunters – through more recent controversies raging about the difference between restoring the population and preventing extinction, Manatee Insanity lives up to its name.

As the environmental reporter for the St. Petersburg Times, Craig Pittman closely follows the fate of manatees. His latest book, subtitled Inside the War over Florida’s Most Famous Endangered Species, is a fascinating look beyond the headlines.

Told with just a touch of sarcasm, Manatee Insanity looks at how cutting-edge scientific work is twisted by special interests on both sides. Manatees are endangered and we must act immediately or they will become extinct, says one side. On the other hand, some actions have led to increased manatee populations, as shown by the larger numbers recorded each year.

And of course, if there are more manatees, more will be killed.

Pittman’s look at one of the most important reports on manatee population provides an interesting perspective on how the opposing sides look at the same information. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service asked Michael Runge to determine if the “incidental take” of manatees – deaths accidentally caused by boats – could be considered “negligible” under the federal Marine Mammal Protection Act passed in 1972. Runge, a scientist working for the U.S. Geological Survey, is considered to be one of the nation’s premier experts on creating population models for various species of wildlife.

More long-term data has been collected on manatees than any other marine mammal, although the methodology for identifying individual animals is chilling: the boat scars nearly every creature in the wild exhibits work like fingerprints in the state’s catalog of manatees. Aerial manatee counts, conducted during the winter when they gather at warm-water locations, also were included in Runge’s study along with predictions on reproduction and survivability among female manatees. His conclusion:

“In the absence of any new management action, that is, if boat mortality rates continue to increase at the rates observed since 1992, the situation in the Atlantic and Southwest regions is dire, with no chance of meeting recovery criteria within 100 years.”

Save the Manatee Club took the report and ran with it, focusing on Runge’s use of the word “dire,” but ignoring the modifying clause “if boat mortalities continue to increase.” Boaters emphasized the increased counts Runge detailed and their supporters called the report “bizarre.”

Although the Fish and Wildlife Service had asked Runge for the report, it said it could not become part of the decision-making process on incidental take because the computer model had not yet been peer-reviewed. In Washington, Craig Manson, Interior Department assistant secretary for fish and wildlife and parks “decided he couldn’t decide… and dumped the decision back in the hands of the people who most needed an answer from above,” Pittman writes.

Since then, manatee speed zones have been created in most coastal counties – some of them decades after the first agreements made to implement them – and boat-related deaths declined slightly to 79 in 2010 after a record 97 the previous year. Still, the Runge report was clear that boats are the leading cause of preventable death and that incidental take should not exceed 13.2 animals per year to comply with federal legislation, a goal that has never been met.

Unlike Pittman’s first book, Paving Paradise: Florida’s Vanishing Wetlands and the Failure of No Net Loss, his manatee book doesn’t conclude with a series of recommendations on how policy makers should address long-term manatee populations. “We know what we need to do, it’s just that we lack the political will to do it,” he says.

The Florida Humanities Council has added Manatee Insanity to its list of “essential Florida books” that every state resident should be familiar with. "In microcosm, the saga reflects the decades-long struggle between

development and wildlife, and how one has impacted the other during Florida’s booming growth,” it said.
And as Pittman’s fans have come to expect, it’s a great read.

They’ll also be pleased to know that Pittman has completed another book pending review prior to publication by the University Press of Florida. This one goes beyond the headlines to tell the tale of a rare orchid illegally imported from Peru.

“This guy waltzed through the Miami Airport without a permit, got in his car and drove across the state with what has been called the most spectacular orchid discovered this century,” Pittman said. He calls it a crime story that combines the quirky people involved in the orchid business with the international law that governs endangered species.

“The University Press requires that each of their non-fiction books is reviewed by two experts in the field. One looked at it and said if he didn’t know the whole story he would have thought it was the product of a dark and twisted imagination.”

For more information on Pittman’s current books, sign up for his blogs at www.manateeinsanity.com/blog/ or www.pavingparadise.com/blog.

Photo courtesy U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

Creature Feature

Common name:

West Indian manatees (Trichechus manatus)

Range:

Sensitive to temperatures below about 68 degrees, West Indian manatees are typically found in warm waters from Florida south to Brazil. They are tolerant of a wide range of salinity and are found in habitats ranging from Tampa Bay and the Caribbean Sea to freshwater locations like Crystal River.

Description:

Manatees/Sirenians are aquatic mammals that probably evolved from four-legged animals – their closest living relatives may be elephants. They weigh about 800 to 1200 pounds and spend most of their days grazing in shallow waters. An adult manatee may eat up to 10% of its body weight per day.

The oldest known living manatee is Snooty, who was born July 21, 1948 at the now-defunct Miami Aquarium and Tackle Company. He now lives at the South Florida Museum in Bradenton.

Population Counts:

Manatees have been listed as endangered by the federal government since 1967. Last year, more manatees were counted than ever before – a total of 5076 – but more died than ever before too, a total of 767 with about 500 deaths attributed to cold weather.

Most years, speeding boats kill more manatees than anything else. Because they have few natural predators, they are very slow-moving creatures – about three to five miles per hour. In shallow waters where they’re most often found, they cannot escape speeding boats. Researchers use unique scars patterns found on nearly every animal living in the wild to identify individual manatees.

Reproduction:

Manatees typically breed once every two years, gestation lasts about 12 months, and it takes a further 12 to 18 months to wean the calf.

If you go:

Manatees gather at TECO’s Big Bend power plant when water temperatures drop below 68 degrees. Lowry Park Zoo also has the region’s first hospital specifically created for manatees and can accommodate up to 18 in special tanks with underwater viewing areas. Snooty is still performing at the South Florida Museum. Both TECO and the South Florida Museum have webcams online during daylight hours.