For the third year in a row, the annual attempt to count the manatees swimming in Florida's waterways has broken the previous year's record. Scientists reported finding 6,620 manatees this year, up from the 6,250 they counted last year and the 6,063 the year before.
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A team of 15 observers from 10 organizations flying around various regions counted 3,488 manatees on Florida's east coast from Jacksonville to the Keys, and 3,132 on the west coast from the Wakulla River down to the Everglades. The survey was coordinated by the state's marine science laboratory, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Research Institute in St. Petersburg.
"The relatively high counts we have seen for the past three years underscore the importance of warm water habitat to manatees in Florida," institute director Gil McRae said in a news release sent out Monday.
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A manatee swims in Kings Bay in Citrus County.
The scientists conducting the aerial surveys always warn the public not to treat the manatee numbers as if they were a census. They always say that it's a minimum number and that they likely missed some of them.
Attempting to spot manatees for the count can be difficult, since they only surface every five minutes or so to breathe. One veteran biologist compared the effort to trying to count popcorn while it pops.
Nevertheless, the numbers now are far higher than the 1,267 manatees counted by the first state-sponsored survey in 1991.
The general upward trend in the population is one reason the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has proposed taking manatees down a rung on its endangered species list. The agency's other argument for changing the listing: a computer model that shows they now stand little chance of going extinct.
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Manatees swims in Kings Bay in Citrus County.
Manatees have been classified as endangered since the first federal list came out in 1967. They were put on the list because of the threats they faced from being run over by boats, the loss of habitat to waterfront development and a decline in water quality.
They no longer meet that term's legal definition, according to the federal agency, and thus should be reclassified as merely threatened.
However, in a public hearing last year and in public comments on the proposal, manatee fans overwhelmingly opposed the change in the listing status. They noted the computer model failed to take into account either manatees' loss of habitat or the massive die-offs in recent years from Red Tide and cold stress — events that could easily be repeated.
The federal agency is expected to make a decision on the change sometime this year.
Contact Craig Pittman at craig@tampabay.com. Follow @craigtimes.
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