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AWI Joins
Federal Lawsuits to Protect Manatees In January of this year, AWI joined a coalition of 18 environmental and animal welfare groups led by Save the Manatee Club (SMC), in filing two federal lawsuits, one against the US Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) and US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) and the other against the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC),* both aimed at protecting the endangered Florida manatee and its shrinking habitat. |
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The deaths of Florida’s West Indian manatees, whose closest relative is the elephant, have continued to increase despite being listed for federal protection under the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972, the Endangered Species Act of 1973, and state protection under the Florida Manatee Sanctuary Act of 1978. The lawsuits are a result of USFWS’s and FWC’s continued unwillingness to protect the manatee, a species that was on the original Endangered Species list in 1966. Both lawsuits ask that state and federal agencies implement and enforce existing environmental laws to stop manatee deaths and bring them back to healthy population levels. Key to the suit against the Corps is its repeated issuance of permits for development in manatee habitat without analyzing the cumulative effects of the permits on the species or its habitat. With ever-increasing human encroachment into its fragile habitat,
the manatee’s mortality rates are increasing at an alarming rate. As
of July 24, 2000, FWC’s Florida Marine Research Institute listed
preliminary year 2000 numbers as high as 189. Official numbers from the
FWC show a mortality rate of 100 during the first quarter of 2000, well
ahead of the 80 during the same period in 1999. So far this year the FWC
has been able to determine that 61 manatee deaths have been caused by
watercraft. This number is only six short of a record setting number in
1999 with 5 months left in 2000. Only an estimated 2,400 of these
gentle, slow moving herbivores exist today and at these death rates, the
Florida manatee cannot survive. Simple steps such as speed limit enforcement and boat propeller guards would not only help reduce manatee deaths and injuries, but such efforts would also reduce human injuries. In the past, the Florida state legislature has attempted to pass legislation requiring propeller guards on new boats. Unless federal and state agencies act now, the dramatic boating population explosion in Florida will destroy the manatee whose fossil record in Florida dates back to at least 45 million years ago. AWI’s companion organization, the Society for Animal Protective Legislation, has been working with the coalition’s legislative team to secure an additional $500,000 from the US Congress for manatee protection. These additional funds, which have been approved by the House of Representatives, would double the USFWS budget to deploy more on-water law enforcement officers. * Meyer & Glitzenstein is handling the suit against the USFWS and the Corps while Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund is handling the suit against the FWC. Top Photo,
All boaters and manufacturers should install propeller guards which
would help reduce manatee deaths and ghastly injuries, like the one
pictured above. (photo from USFWS)
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