Nearly two months after a manatee named Tico was released from a rehabilitation facility and made his way into the deep waters of the open ocean, an international team of volunteers was delighted when he was found after traveling nearly 2,500 miles, reported The Australian. After being released into the wild by Brazilian NGO Aquasis […]
Florida’s manatees are in trouble, so much trouble that wildlife officials are considering an unprecedented intervention — feeding them. It is currently illegal to feed manatees, which are protected by the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972, the Endangered Species Act of 1973 and the Florida Manatee Sanctuary Act of 1978. However, so many manatees […]
Manatees are majestic creatures, and their presence near Florida brings a lot of awe from locals and tourists alike. But worsening pollution from agricultural runoff, wastewater and other pollutants is causing one of their primary food sources — seagrass — to run scarce. By October 2021 alone, nearly 1,000 manatees have died from food scarcity. […]
A record number of manatees have died in Florida this year due to food scarcity in the Indian River Lagoon, officials said. The loss of seagrass in the waters has caused manatees to die from starvation and malnutrition, according to TCPalm. A total of 841 manatees died, with 312 deaths occurring in Brevard County’s segment […]
By Julia Conley Conservation advocates in Florida are warning that 1,000 manatees in the state’s water could die this year — hundreds more than in recent years — due to starvation driven by water pollution, the climate crisis, and other man-made harms to the mammals’ ecosystem. As The Guardian reported Monday, 749 manatees died between […]
By Larry Brand Millions of gallons of water laced with fertilizer ingredients are being pumped into Florida’s Tampa Bay from a leaking reservoir at an abandoned phosphate plant at Piney Point. As the water spreads into the bay, it carries phosphorus and nitrogen – nutrients that under the right conditions can fuel dangerous algae blooms […]
The first few months of 2021 have been extremely deadly for manatees as food sources in Florida have become increasingly limited, scientists say. In the first six weeks of the new year, 317 manatee deaths were reported across Florida, CBSMiami reported. Since then, that number has risen to at least 432 deaths — about three […]
By John R. Platt and Dipika Kadaba Florida manatees had another deadly year in 2019. An estimated 531 manatees died in Florida waters in the past 12 months. That’s a significant decrease from the number of deaths in 2018, when 824 manatees died, but it still represents a nearly 10 percent loss to their population […]
Florida’s longest red tide in more than a decade has killed scores of the state’s most iconic marine animals. The current outbreak, which began in October 2017 off southwest Florida, has been tied to a record 589 sea turtle deaths and 213 manatee deaths, the Herald-Tribune reported, citing figures from the Florida Fish and Wildlife […]