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Florida Manatee

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Cat Lazaroff

Florida Manatee Management and Policy

Defenders lobbies in Washington, DC, and Tallahassee, Florida, defending the Endangered Species Act, the Marine Mammal Protection Act, and the Florida Manatee Sanctuary Act. We have also worked as members of the Florida Manatee Recovery Team to help shape the new tasks necessary for manatee recovery in the wild.

Settlement Leads to Additional Protection Measures

Defenders was a lead plaintiff in federal lawsuits against the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission that resulted in a landmark settlement requiring many additional protection measures for manatees.

The settlement also resulted in a first ever attempt to write a regulation under the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) regarding the “incidental take” of manatees from watercraft operation and marina development. USGS population biologist Michael C. Runge developed a scientific model to determine how many manatees could be legally taken through these activities. The conclusion was that the taking of even a single manatee could not be authorized.

Fighting State Downlisting and Changes to Listing Criteria

Defenders has also long been at the forefront of stopping the attempt to downlist manatees on the state level, given that the manatee’s future in Florida is far from secure. Major threats are looming and Defenders believes state downlisting is unwarranted and short-sighted.

Defenders was a member of Florida’s Listing Process Stakeholders Panel, and was among the members that worked to persuade the state that the changes they made to the IUCN criteria for listing species were misguided and would result in unforeseen problems for imperiled species in Florida. We coordinated with numerous ecologists and experts; however, for years the state chose to ignore the experts and voted in 2006 to downlist the Florida manatee on the state level from Endangered to Threatened status and continued moving forward with the final phases of downlisting, which included writing and adopting a Management Plan. Defenders submitted detailed comments on the plan while continuing to object to the state’s downlisting effort. When the Management Plan was completed, all that was necessary for the FWC to downlist was a final vote. Fortunately, thanks to last minute intervention by Florida’s Governor Charlie Crist and continuing efforts by Defenders and our conservation partners, the decision to downlist has been deferred indefinitely while state wildlife agency staff revisit their species listing process.

Fish and Wildlife Service also recommends reclassifying manatees to “Threatened”

In April 2007, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS)announced the results of a five-year status review of the West Indian manatee and concluded that the species no longer fits the definition of endangered. This recommendation was made in spite of a new scientific report that predicts long-term decline in Florida’s manatee population.

The report found that manatees in three of the four “management units” in Florida are currently doing well, while manatee survival in the fourth region, (Southwest Florida, representing roughly 40% of the statewide population), is declining.

According to the authors, USGS population biologists, the statewide population is now stable and is expected to continue to be so for the next 10-15 years. However, the long-term trend will be one of significant decline; over the next 50-100 years. With anticipated changes in manatee habitat (especially loss of warm water in the winter), the population is expected decline slowly, then decline rapidly, and eventually stabilize at a level about half or two-thirds of today’s numbers.

Even more alarming is the report’s conclusion that there is an 8.6% chance that manatees on either coast will reach “quasi-extinction” levels in the next 100 years. Even with these predicted declines, USFWS determined that manatees do not meet the Endangered Species Act definition of Endangered: “In danger of extinction throughout all or a significant portion of its range.”

While Defenders of Wildlife and our coalition colleagues agree with the science on which this report was based, we strongly disagree with how this science is being interpreted by FWS to make policy decisions. The current declines in Southwest Florida coupled with predicted long-term, statewide declines, further underscored by risk of extinction, firmly demonstrates that downlisting is unwarranted, short-sighted and indefensible. At this time, the FWS has not taken final action on their 2007 staff recommendation to downlist manatees. Perhaps they know the recommendation is seriously flawed. Regardless, Defenders will continue to monitor the situation and we are ready to take action if the FWS moves forward to downlist.