- [Announcer] This is a production of WEDU PBS, Tampa, St. Petersburg, Sarasota.

- [Rob] Coming up next, Florida's official marine mammals, the manatees, are dying this year at an alarming rate.

In a moment, we'll take a look at what's causing their deaths and what can be done to save these gentle giants.

Next, on Florida This Week.

(upbeat music) - Welcome back, 2021 has been a deadly year for the Florida manatee.

More than 1,000 of these gentle creatures have died since the beginning of the year, largely due to the decline of seagrass.

Only about 7500 manatees still live along Florida's coastline.

And the death rate means more than 13% of the total population perished in just 11 months.

At the current rate, Florida's manatee population faces extinction in just a few short years.

Producer James Borchuk shows us what organizations on both sides of Tampa Bay are doing to protect these iconic Florida mammals.

(light music) - Our Manatee Critical Care Center is really important because we give manatees a second chance at life.

We get sick and injured animals, and we just really want to help them get better and get them back out.

- It's akin to someone being picked up in an ambulance and then we figure out where's the closest hospital.

- So the goal of the David A. Straz Manatee Critical Care Center is to rescue, rehab and release injured, orphan and sick manatees back to Florida waters.

Some have been here for almost two years and some just came in the door yesterday.

- This year, we'll probably have more than 1,000 manatees die.

A large portion of those because of starvation on the east coast.

Environmental changes have led to a die back in seagrasses, which is their primary food.

(light music) - [Molly] Manatees eat 10-15% of their body weight every single day.

I think right now we've been averaging about 1200 pounds of food a day.

50% of their diet is usually romaine lettuce and then we'll supplement with some endive and escarole lettuce as well.

It has to be restaurant quality.

We order it every day from a produce company and we wanna make sure that it's the best they can get.

- Manatee calves can be very challenging.

When they get here, our first hope is that they have a nursing response.

When I'm feeding a baby manatee and they're tucked up against me, my first thought usually is just I'm so thankful that you were found.

I'm just praying that the manatee's gonna take on to nursing and continue on those stages of life that we need it to get through so we can release it back.

Hello, know why I'm really excited right now is that our calf, Tober, the 2 1/2 weeks that he has been here has not accepted a bottle and this was his first finishing the bottle.

So that's a really big step in his development.

We feel all the emotions here in our critical care center 'cause you go through that recovery with them.

Just being where he was to where he is now, it's awesome.

- We know that we need more critical care centers in order to keep doing what we're doing.

(light music) - This entire site is gonna be a dolphin, whale and manatee rehab site.

We're gonna add these additional pools which will specifically be for manatees.

I was just talking to one of our biologists over on the east coast.

She is already beginning to see emaciated manatees show up at those power plants.

So we expect 2022 to be as bad if not worse as 2021.

Now, we're at a potential tipping point if we're having so many manatees die.

It's gonna be really important that not only do we maintain the existing capacity to rescue and rehab these animals, but also expand it, like what we're doing right here.

If we don't, it is almost certain that that population particularly on the east coast will begin to decline.

(light music) - We recently got a new manatee in.

He's definitely a really critical case, probably one of the skinniest cases I've seen in my time here.

Definitely has we call it a peanut head, that sunken in shape.

They have what looks like hand bones like we do, so you could definitely see the outlines of those bones and yeah, he's gonna definitely take some time and we're very optimistic here.

We know we are in a rehab setting and that at any point in time things can change on an animal's health.

We don't give up hope.

Our team is 100% dedicated.

So there's a lot of things that individuals can do to help the manatees.

- [Molly] If you're a big boater, you need to watch out for them.

You need to slow down in manatee zones.

- [James] Wear polarized sunglasses, try to have a spotter onboard.

- [Jaime] Pick up some trash if you're ever along the beach 'cause all of that can enter the waterway and not only affect manatees, but other animals.

- [Molly] Don't throw your fishing line out into the ocean.

Make sure you pull that back in.

- [James] We need to be very aware about water quality, reducing the amount of fertilizers that you use, anything that you hear about that increase nutrient load in the marine environment.

- [Molly] I'm hopeful things will get better.

I don't think it's going to happen overnight.

I do think really just getting the awareness out there that manatees need our help.

- [Jaime] They're just really great animals.

They're just majestic.

When you see them and when you see them up close, it's really something.

- [Molly] We love when guests come to the zoo.

I feel like they touch lives when they come here and we want people to continue to come here and so they can bring their children and their grandchildren.

- [James] And if we as a society cannot protect these animals right here in our own backyard, well, shame on us because it can be done and it should be done.

- [Jaime] They're just a wonderful animal that I hope we keep around forever.

(light music) - Just beautiful pictures.

So what's being done to protect the manatees in Florida?

Joining us now are Craig Pittman, an award-winning Florida journalist.

He writes a weekly column on the environment for the Florida Phoenix.

He's written six books and is the co-host of the podcast, Welcome to Florida.

Martine DeWit is a veterinarian with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

She monitors manatee health in Florida and is responsible for the rescues of sick and injured manatees across the state.

Information from these rescues helps inform manatee managers in their conservation efforts.

And Jaclyn Lopez is an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity.

She is the group's Florida director and is part of a suit that was filed against the owners of the Piney Point Reservoir in Manatee County, which had a massive toxic spill last summer.

Thank you all for joining us.

Great to have you here.

- Good to be here.

- Well, Craig, let's start with you.

I wanna ask you, is it too much to say that manatees are heading for extinction?

Did I overdo it at the top of the show?

Buddy Pal said that we're tipping point.

How close are we?

- I think a lot depends on what happens this winter.

If we have a cold winter, a prolonged cold and the manatees are forced into the areas where they need refuge from the cold and there's not enough for them to eat, then I think we're gonna see a die off as bad perhaps worse than the one we're having now.

And that just really worries me about the future of manatees in Florida.

They're such a popular and well-known animal here in Florida.

And the fact that we can't do enough to protect them, we can't be bothered apparently to clean up our waterways and avoid polluting them and causing the loss of seagrass and costing ourselves these iconic animals is just a real disappointment for me as far as a Floridian.

- And Jaclyn, what do you think?

Are we on the verge of seeing perhaps the extinction of these creatures?

- I think that there's a real threat in front of us for manatees that we are down the wrong path.

It's gonna take a very long time for that population on the east coast to recover and for that habitat, which is very important for the over wintering of manatees in the Atlantic population to recover.

So to rebuild the seagrass, to clean up the waterways is a multi-decade endeavor that Floridians need to prioritize if we wanna see Florida manatees in the future.

- Okay, so a lot of these deaths did occur last winter just off the Indian River shores.

Martine, let me ask you, what's the range of manatees 'cause we talked about the east coast die off, but for people that live around Florida, where are the major parts or spaces where manatees come in, the major estuaries that they gather?

- Yeah, manatees are the subspecies that we have here, the Florida manatee.

And in summertime, they are everywhere, coastal waters, inland waters.

They also venture outside of the state.

So you can find animals as far as Texas on the Gulf coast and as far north as the most northern manatee has been seen in Massachusetts in earlier years.

But in the wintertime, that's when manatees come back to Florida and to springs and discharges from power plants to stay warm.

So that is really their winter habitat when they are restricted to those warm water sites.

- And I've seen them off the waters of downtown St. Pete.

So Craig, do you have a favorite place to view manatees?

- A great place, a place I've taken my kids is the Tampa Electric Company, TECO Manatee Viewing area over on Apollo Beach.

One post Christmastime whenever we didn't really have any money and the heat was out in our house, we drove over there and watched the manatees, watched about 300 manatees all gathered together in the TECO viewing area, for free I might add, so that was an added bonus.

And it was quite magical.

One of my kids actually said it was better than video games.

(Rob laughs) (Craig laughs) - So I wanna ask you about the starvation of the manatees and Jaclyn, this one to you.

What is causing the seagrasses to die off in such big numbers and is it a problem just in the Indian River area or is it a problem around Florida?

- Water quality is an issue throughout Florida, but what we saw in 2021 was a massive failure to protect that ecosystem from nutrient pollution.

And scientists have been monitoring the northern Indian River Lagoon for the last decade and predicting that there would be an ecosystem collapse in the form of tens of thousands of acres of seagrass dying as a consequence of harmful algal blooms, which are fueled by nutrient pollution which is our euphemism for describing pollutants that enter the waterway, like phosphorous and nitrogen in the forms of ammonia and other things that can create these proliferations of algae which then make conditions for seagrass really difficult.

And that's what we saw here.

So when manatees went into that part of the estuary last winter when the temperatures dropped expecting their tens and thousands of acres of seagrass to sustain them while they had to hunker down and seek out that warmer water, there just was no seagrass available, or insufficient seagrass available.

And so many hundreds of manatees succumbed to malnourishment and starvation.

- So is it leaking sewer pipes, is that part of the problem?

- Well, right now, there's been what's called an unusual mortality event declared.

And that's what happens when you have a large number of marine mammals that suddenly die in a short period of time.

So the lead investigators between the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, the US Fish and Wildlife Service, National Marine Fishery Service and other agencies are working together to try to pinpoint the exact causes.

What we do know that that part of the lagoon suffers from sewage, outright sewage discharges, nearly 1/2 million gallons just in 2020.

But historically discharges anytime just like on the west coast in the Tampa Bay area when we have really wet weather, there's these discharges of untreated sewage, there's leaking septic, there's runoff so because of land use, the way that we use our land, our inability to keep nutrients on the land and they end up in the water.

It's a combination of all of those sources.

- So fertilizer runoff, when you say runoff, you're talking about fertilizer runoff.

- Fertilizer, pesticide, even from our emissions, the atmospheric nitrogen, there's all kinds of sources.

And so scientists are parsing that out and figuring out what we can do better.

- Craig, if seagrasses are dying off, are other species affected?

So we're worried about manatees, but does it also affect other species?

- Yeah, I think manatees are the canary in the coal mine, a marine mammal version for what's happening for these estuaries as a whole that seagrasses which are so important to their feeding are really important as far as being nurseries for other types of aquatic animals, fish, crabs, et cetera.

And so if you lose those seagrasses, then you're losing those nursery areas for those commercially important species.

So the loss of seagrass, it's not just an environmental disaster for us, it's an economic disaster as well.

- Martine, we saw some harrowing pictures, video of emaciated manatees.

And I'm just wondering once they get that emaciated, how hard is it bring them back?

- It is extremely hard.

These manatees did not get this thin overnight and some of them have maybe experienced months and months of suboptimal forage.

So what we are seeing here on the Atlantic coast is the effects of prolonged starvation.

And it is really something that we've never documented before in manatees.

Of course, you can get emaciated from disease or chronic trauma, but what we are seeing here is that it is really pure starvation.

And you have large manatees that have decades of experience of using the Indian River Lagoon, not only in winter but also in summertime.

And these animals are wasting away.

And internally, we've found that their organs are showing signs of atrophy, they stop reproduction and ultimately they succumb to the effects of starvation.

- And Jaclyn, what about restoring seagrasses?

I know the seagrass in Tampa Bay too was coming back and then it had a setback recently.

So is our state government doing enough to restore seagrasses so that we're not seeing these animal species wiped out?

- Seagrass restoration is something that we need to approach holistically.

So it's not a matter of just plugging new seagrass in the ground and hoping that we're gonna have a different result.

If we don't get a handle on nutrient pollution, we're gonna continue to see these significant declines in seagrass.

So you're right, Tampa Bay went on this wonderful path to recovery and had been making a great progress over the last few decades with seagrass restoration and just this last year, we had the Piney Point disaster and there's real concern that we're going to see a setback in recovery in the estuary.

- Martine, do manatees eat plastic bags 'cause I see a lot of plastic bags flying around in the air as I drive, people tossing them out of cars.

When that plastic bag ends up in a waterway, do manatees view that as food?

- Yeah, and they don't eat it on purpose.

You can have marine debris that's laying on the bottom and manatees ingest it accidentally when foraging.

Sometimes manatees may be curious and are playing with something that's floating.

So we do see manatees ingesting any kind of debris that is in their environment.

It's not always lethal.

Sometimes it's small enough, or most often it's small enough that they will just process it and it gets excreted through their GI tract again.

But we have documented cases where it can be lethal.

When you have a fishing line that damages their gut or you have hooks penetrating through their gut wall, you can have serious complications from that ingested debris.

- So I'm sure a lot of people watching this might say, well, if they're starving, I'm gonna go out on my boat dock or when they come up my estuary or my river, Craig, and they'll toss out a head of lettuce or something.

Is it a good idea to feed manatees on your own?

- No, no, you don't want manatees to become accustomed to getting food from people, especially off their docks because think about what else is at the dock, boats.

And so if they start to hang around areas where boats are, they're liable to be hit more often by boats.

And also, you want them to not get trained to expect food from humans.

You want them to look for their own food.

These are wild animals and feeding wild animals generally does not end well.

But it's an issue that I think that people want to do something to help and they feel like that's something they can do, but it's just a really bad idea for individuals to do that.

- Martine, what do you think about humans feeding manatees on their own?

- Yeah, in addition to the concerns that Craig already mentioned, it's illegal.

Manatees are a protected species and it's against the law to harass them, and feeding is considered harassment.

- Well, thinking of protected species, have manatees been downgraded recently, Craig?

- Yes, four years ago in the early stages of the Trump administration, the US Fish and Wildlife Service declared manatees were no longer endangered and that they were threatened now and they did what they call downlisting them.

They did this over the objections of a number of scientists they had asked to comment on the proposal.

And now that we've seen so many of them die this year, quite a few people in Congress and other positions are calling for them to reconsider that idea and to say, well, okay, maybe we're wrong, maybe they are endangered.

It struck me as very odd the way they did the downlisting.

Manatees when they were first put on the endangered list in 1967, the very first endangered species list, they were put there because of the loss of habitat to waterfront development and the threat from being run over by boats and because of water quality issues.

And those are all three issues that are still with us today.

Those are still threats of the manatees.

But the Fish and Wildlife Service had done a computer model that they said, oh, well, our computer model shows that everything's hunky dory with manatees now and they're gonna be fine and they're gonna persist.

And you know what they say about computers, garbage in, garbage out.

- So Jaclyn and Martine, we've been talking about boats for a little bit.

As I go to Crystal River or if I'm paddling on the Hillsborough River, I never see a manatee without scars on its back from boat propellers.

How dangerous are boats and people operating boats poorly to these manatees?

And Jaclyn, let's start with you.

- Boat strikes remain about 20% of the sources of mortality to manatees with the exception of this year and in 2018 when red tide was bad.

So on typical years, boats kill about 20% of the manatees that die and it's usually from being struck by the boat, not even necessarily the propeller, but being impacted by the hull.

And that's because the boat is going too fast for the manatee to get out of the water.

Manatees can get out of the way, they just need a little bit more time to do it, time and space.

And Florida is also the deadliest state for folks in boats.

So we have more fatalities by boat accident than any other state.

Florida is also a state where you don't need a driver's license to drive a boat the way that you do a car.

And a boat is like a car without brakes.

And so we need to be doing a little bit more to require increased education awareness for some of our boat drivers that aren't required to have boater education, those that were born before 1989 don't need that sort of education in Florida, and to be educating them about marine wildlife specifically and why it's important to obey those speed signs.

And be on a lookout for manatees when you're using Florida waters.

Whatever the waters are, there's likely a manatee in them.

- And Martine, what else would you tell boaters that they should be careful of when it comes to manatees?

- Always be aware manatees are around.

In the summertime, they can be anywhere.

Of course, they're at a posted speed zones where you restrict your speed, but even if you're outside of those, manatees can be anywhere.

They can be resting, foraging especially in the shallow areas.

So it's always good to have a spotter on the boat, wear polarized glasses to look out for manatees.

- So they can be in the river in the summertime in June, even though the Gulf is warmer.

- Correct, yeah.

- All right, so we're down to the last minute and a half.

Craig, I wanna ask you, what can people do?

What more can people do to help save the manatee?

- One really important thing they can do is buy the Save the Manatee license plates.

Those help to finance the research that's done into the causes of their death to their abundance, their location and that kind of thing.

I know it's very Florida that we pay for our scientists by selling license plates, but that's what we do in Florida for manatees, for panthers and so forth.

And so if you really wanna help the manatees, that's a big thing you can do right there.

- All right, and Martine, what else can people do?

- The manatees that we saw at beginning in rehab, they were all reported to us by the people in Florida.

That's how we learn that manatees need assistance.

So anyone in Florida, if you see a sick or injured or manatee in distress, even a dead manatee, please report them to the statewide Wildlife Alert hotline.

That number is 1-888-404-3922 and that way, we can get in touch with the people who report the manatees and respond when needed.

- And Jaclyn, we have 20 seconds.

What else should people do to save the manatees?

- Let your elected officials know that water quality is a priority for you, that we have the laws on the books already, they just need to be enforced to keep our water clean, which is gonna benefit humans and manatees and all of the other biodiversity we have in Florida.

- Well, Jaclyn Lopez and Martine DeWit and Craig Pittman, thanks a lot for coming on this program.

And thank you for the work that you do.

- Thanks for having us.

- Thank you.

- Well, for more information on the efforts to save manatees in Florida, you can go online to zootampa.org and view the various ways you can help out.

You can also go to the Clearwater Marine Aquarium website at cmaquarium.org and see the ongoing progress of their new rescue facility in Tarpon Springs.

Thanks for joining us.

You can view this and past shows online at wedu.org or on the PBS app.

And Florida This Week is now available as a podcast.

You can subscribe to it on our website or wherever you get your podcasts.

Finally, the late singer, Jim Morris, is fondly remembered across the state for his performances in bars and restaurants favored by locals.

One of his best loved songs is The Talking Manatee, a tribute to both the animal and the beautiful state we live in.

Stay safe, have a great holiday weekend.

We'll see you next week.

♪ I was on my boat this morning ♪ ♪ And heard a voice call out to me ♪ ♪ Up there near the mangroves ♪ ♪ Was a talking manatee ♪ ♪ And he said, try to take it easy ♪ ♪ Take pleasure in every day ♪ ♪ Try some grouper therapy ♪ ♪ Or go sailing on the bay ♪ ♪ Spend less time in traffic ♪ ♪ Don't go speeding everywhere ♪ ♪ All you humans are crazy people ♪ ♪ You're much too busy way up there ♪ ♪ And you humans are endangered people ♪ ♪ Take it easy way up there ♪ (upbeat music) ♪ How now sea cow ♪ - [Announcer] Florida This Week is a production of WEDU who is solely responsible for its content.

(upbeat music)