A survey found nearly 4,000 manatees in Florida, but the find is unlikely to reignite a battle over endangered status.
Curtin Morgan, Miami Herald 29 Jan 09
Florida's manatee count hit an all-time high this year, in large part because cold snaps corraled the endangered sea cows into toasty waters around nuclear power plants and natural springs.
The annual aerial survey, conducted Jan. 19, recorded 3,807 manatees, topping a previous high by more than 500 animals, according to a preliminary report released Wednesday by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
Wildlife managers and manatee advocates cautioned the jump doesn't mean the population has suddenly boomed or that marine mammals are no longer at risk. The count captures only a snapshot, a minimum number that can vary wildly according to weather.
Mother Nature proved especially accommodating this year, said Holly Edwards, a biologist in charge of the surveys for the FWC's Fish and Wildlife Research Institute.
The count was done on a clear day following cold fronts that drove the temperature-sensitive sea cows into warm-water havens where their big, blubbery hulks could be easily seen and counted from small planes. Similar conditions produced the previous high of 3,276 in 2001 -- a mark that was preceded and followed by surveys counting 1,000 or so fewer animals. Still, wildlife managers and manatee advocates called the results encouraging, saying the count supported population models suggesting manatees are increasing in Northwest Florida, along the Atlantic Coast and on the upper St. Johns River.
''Kept in perspective, yes, it's good news,'' said Pat Rose, executive director of the Save The Manatee Club.
But, Rose pointed out, numbers in Southwest Florida and the Everglades, home to an estimated 40 percent of manatees, are believed to be in continuing decline. Scientists have an admittedly poorer understanding of that region because dark waters make them difficult to track.
MAN VS. NATURE
The annual aerial surveys, despite their uncertainty, have been used as fodder in the long and bitter debate over the status of the manatee, which scientists once estimated had fallen to perhaps 1,500 animals statewide.
Environmental groups have battled for years with developers, marine industries and boating groups over whether the population was rebounding, stable or still in serious trouble. They have also fought over state and federal regulations on everything from slowing boats -- which account for about a quarter of manatee deaths each year -- to curbing dock construction to whether the sea cow still merited its ''endangered'' protection.
Ted Forsgren, executive director of the Coastal Conservation Association, a recreational fishing group, called the latest count ''no surprise'' and more evidence that the manatee's numbers have been growing over the last few decades.
In 2001, after the last record-high count ignited a backlash from groups frustrated by an increasing array of slow-speed boating zones and coastal building restrictions, Forsgren's group petitioned the state wildlife commission to review the manatee's protective status.
The commission postponed a vote that would have knocked the manatee down a notch to ''threatened'' in 2007 and ordered a review of the state's entire imperiled listing process -- but only after Gov. Charlie Crist echoed environmentalists' concerns about the uncertainty of population assessments.
The FWC is also testing a new annual survey method that would use statistical calculations and computer modeling that the agency believes will improve accuracy and reduce the effects of weather -- but that also has critics.
MARINE INDUSTRY
Though the higher counts have blunted further regulations, Forsgren said the marine industry and boaters remain worried because manatee recovery goals seem a moving target. ''The question has always been at what point are you pleased with the number?'' he said.
Rose said he doesn't expect the latest survey to reignite another effort to downlist the manatee, saying the state is focusing on more sophisticated analysis of the mammal's future -- primarily, the survival rates of adults and calves that can be identified by signature scars.
''I don't think it is necessarily going to open up that can of worms,'' he said.
