After a record manatee die-off, conservation groups sue FWS to revise 'critical habitat'
Max ChesnesThree conservation nonprofits Tuesday filed a lawsuit against the federal government over Florida manatees' unprecedented die-off last year.
The Center for Biological Diversity, Defenders of Wildlife and Save the Manatee Club in August filed a required notice of their intent to sue the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, which they also petitioned in 2008 to update the manatees' critical habitat designation.
A record 1,100 manatee deaths were recorded in 2021, mostly in Brevard County's stretch of the Indian River Lagoon, according to state wildlife data. That surpasses the previous record of 830 set in 2013.
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Scoll down to read the coalition's letter to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
The nonprofits want the agency to recognize the biological factors threatening manatee habitat — seagrass loss, declining water quality and waning natural warm-water refuges — and expand the pre-existing critical habitat designation the agency outlined in 1976.
While the agency recognizes the geographic locations of several Florida waterways as the manatee's critical habitat, there is no detailed description of the environmental threats those waterways face, Jaclyn Lopez, Florida director and senior attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity, told TCPalm in an interview last year.
The groups are asking the agency to revise manatee critical habitat and describe the threats the waterways face to better inform manatee protection efforts at the federal, state and local levels.
"The carnage from 2021 should remove any doubt that Florida’s waters are in crisis,” Lopez said in a prepared statement Tuesday. “With these sweet creatures dying in record numbers, the Biden administration needs to act fast to protect manatee habitat from further destruction.”
As manatees die, should feds revisit habitat?
In 2010, the agency agreed that changes to the manatee's habitat were warranted, but cited insufficient funds and a lack of resources in not taking immediate action.
“Without immediate action, the unprecedented manatee deaths of 2021 could become an annual occurrence," said Elizabeth Fleming, the Defenders of Wildlife's senior Florida representative. "The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service must stop these preventable deaths before recovery of the species is set back even further.”
The agency should revisit the critical habitat question again, with the added context of a record die-off, said Pat Rose, an aquatic biologist and executive director of Save the Manatee Club.
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That added detail would help create a direct link between the habitat's degradation and the species it negatively affects, including manatees, Rose previously told TCPalm. In turn, it would help better inform the agency's present and future response to die-offs.
“The (agency's) failure to protect the manatees’ critical habitat ... left imperiled manatees to suffer the deadly consequences of agonizing, yet preventable, mass starvation,” Rose said in a statement.
Decades of human-caused pollution have led to algal blooms that choke out a main food source for manatees: seagrass. The northern Indian River Lagoon is the epicenter of the die-off, and wildlife biologists last month began an experimental feeding trial there.
Like grass that grows on land, seagrasses are plants that require sunlight to thrive. They die when algae blooms above it, fed by excess nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus from wastewater, fertilizer runoff and leaky septic tanks.
Last March, the die-off was declared an Unusual Mortality Event, a designation that allows the federal government, working with the state and nonprofit organizations, to investigate the causes and determine quick actions to prevent more deaths.
Rose's main request throughout the die-off has been for the agency to continue to respond — along with state wildlife officials and local organizations — without being drastically pulled away to address policy changes.
Where is manatee 'critical habitat'?
Under the Endangered Species Act of 1973, critical habitat is designated for the conservation of threatened and endangered species. As of 2000, the agency lists the sea cow's critical habitat in several east coast Florida waterways, including:
- The Indian River Lagoon's inland section of water, from its northernmost point in Volusia County to Sewall's Point in Martin County
- The Biscayne Bay, and all connected lakes, rivers, canals, and waterways from the southern tip of Key Biscayne
- The Banana River in Brevard County
- The St. John's River.
Every five years, the agency reviews each endangered species to ensure its classification is accurate. When the agency reviewed the manatee population in 2017, biologists cited a population increase in reclassifying the species as "threatened" instead of "endangered."
That was before 1,100 sea cows died in Florida waters last year.
"Revised critical habitat is necessary to provide these imperiled marine mammals life-saving protections to enhance their recovery and to reduce the risk of their extinction," the groups wrote in their August intent to sue notice.
"Florida manatees need revised designated critical habitat to survive and recover."
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Max Chesnes is a TCPalm environment reporter focusing on issues facing the Indian River Lagoon, St. Lucie River and Lake Okeechobee. You can keep up with Max on Twitter @MaxChesnes, email him at max.chesnes@tcpalm.com and give him a call at 772-978-2224.