How Endangered a Species?
By ANDREW C. REVKIN
Published: February 12, 2002
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla.— A steel autopsy table in a red-tiled room is the last resting place for nearly every manatee that dies in Florida. And it is rarely unoccupied these days.
Biologists at the Florida Marine Mammal Pathobiology Laboratory here say 53 of the state's several thousand manatees died in January, 18 of them from collisions with powerboats. That is the highest figure in a single month since officials began keeping records in 1974. Last year, 325 manatees died, 81 of them killed by boats.
The deaths from boating have continued despite the creation of a network of refuges and slow-speed boating zones, and a result is one of the country's most intense debates over an endangered species.
Boaters and marina builders say deaths are mounting simply because manatees are more numerous. Many biologists say the likely cause is growing fleets of fast boats. Florida registered 860,000 powerboats in 2001, nearly twice as many as in 1976.
But the debate is about more than the manatee, the slow-moving weed-munching underwater mammal that has long been a popular symbol of Florida's subtropical ecology. Manatees have become caught up in the wider battle over balancing the needs of wildlife and the rights of legions of boaters and shorefront property owners.
Patrick Rose, a lobbyist in Tallahassee for the Save the Manatee Club, unabashedly called manatees ''the best, most effective growth-management tool that exists.''
To protect manatees, the state has blocked construction of new marinas until counties develop manatee-protection plans. Many plans are behind schedule. Permits for waterside development require lengthy studies of the effects on manatees.
Still, environmental groups say the restrictions do not go far enough. They point to the continuing death toll from boat collisions as evidence. Several groups have accused President Bush and his brother Gov. Jeb Bush of delaying and weakening protections for manatees.
Developers and recreational boaters reply that biologists have put off studies that could show that manatees are thriving and that more restrictions are not needed.
The builders and boaters point to bewhiskered flotillas of hundreds of manatees that cluster each winter near the warm outflow from power-plant cooling systems and then cross busy waterways on their way to feed in grassy shoals. The annual state aerial survey counted 3,261 manatees in 2001, up from 2,222 in 2000.
Many environmentalists and other experts call those figures deceptive, saying the survey varies enormously, depending on the weather.
Just two small populations, in the state's oldest refuges, are thriving, many manatee biologists say. Elsewhere, in 80 percent of their range, they are holding their own, at best.
''They like that coastal environment that's our favorite playground, too, and as a result, we clash,'' said Dr. David Murphy, a veterinarian who cares for injured manatees taken to the Lowry Park Zoo in Tampa.
Environmental campaigners say even as the deaths have mounted, state and federal officials have failed to expand refuges and increase enforcement in speed zones for boats, even though they agreed to do so in settling suits brought by wildlife groups.
Last year, Governor Bush opposed a federal plan to charge $546 for each new boat slip to pay for added local manatee speed patrols. He said the fee was unnecessary because the state was already committing more officers to marine patrols. Within weeks, the federal Fish and Wildlife Service withdrew the plan.
But state patrols in manatee zones have declined in most Florida counties over the last year. Some officers have retired and have not been replaced, and those who remain gained much broader duties and territories when fishery and wildlife agencies were consolidated last year.
In Lee County, a populous region on the southwestern coast around Fort Myers, state wildlife officers say they bounce from enforcing boat speed limits in manatee zones one day to sitting in a patrol car on a rural road the next, watching for speeders where endangered panthers are being struck by cars.
Boat and car accidents are also taking a rising toll on people, officials say. ''We're killing a lot of things in Lee County,'' said Capt. Denis L. Grealish of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
Environmentalists also criticize recent permits granted by federal wildlife and waterway agencies for new powerboat docks, a seaplane landing strip and boat ramps near manatee waters.
One such move was a permit change issued in November by the Army Corps of Engineers and federal wildlife officials to WCI Communities, a large developer on Florida's western coast. The change ended a longstanding restriction at the company's Gulf Harbour Marina in Fort Myers that limited powerboats to 65 of 190 slips.
The Fish and Wildlife Service found that increased enforcement in speed zones would compensate for the additional boats. But, again, critics of the decision say the enforcement effort has shrunk, not grown.
WCI is run by Al Hoffman Jr., a longtime financial supporter of the two Bush brothers, who was named finance chairman of the Republican National Committee after President Bush's election. WCI officials and federal officials said the permit change had nothing to do with Mr. Hoffman's political links.