Manatees pay the price for human agriculture and landscape practices
By George Atchley
Manatees are docile, solitary creatures. They spend half of their lives asleep, and the majority of the rest of their lives feeding in shallow (3-7 feet), fresh waterways.
Humans are by far the greatest threat to this federally protected species. With boat strikes and contact with watercraft propellers taking a toll, “no-wake” zones have long been enacted in areas where manatees are normally found; however, the greater threat man poses to these gentle giants is the destruction of their food sources.
Manatees graze on more than 60 fresh and saltwater grasses and plants. Through runoff from high-nitrogen fertilization in yards and farms, algae blooms and red tides choke out native grasses and plants. Herbicide runoff further compounds the problem by killing these same essential food sources.
Signs of starvation have been the precursors to a record death toll in the manatee population this year. With more than a month left in 2021, Florida has seen at least 1,003 manatees die. The previous single-year record was in 2013, with 830 deaths.
Florida exceeded that number in July.
Of the 1,003 manatee deaths so far this year, only 90 have been attributed to watercraft. Conventional fertilizers, weed-and-feed products, and herbicide sprays for lawns and farms are destroying the native grasses and plants along the waterways that manatees need to survive.
Yards and farms using these high-nitrogen fertilizers and herbicides don’t need to be adjacent to waterways for the runoff to be lethal. Essentially, every piece of land in Florida is connected to fresh and saltwater bodies through drainage and rainfall runoff.
Adult manatees need to eat 100-200 lbs. of plants per day to meet basic nutritional needs. With the lack of food in the waterways this year, we will surely see a huge rise in the number of manatees starving to death.
In an August meeting, state and federal manatee experts agreed a best-case scenario was that with immediate intervention, it could still take as much as a decade to recover sufficient plant life to maintain manatee populations.
This is one example of why we created the ClimateYard program. Awareness is the first step. To take a meaningful next step to protect our precious aquatic ecosystems, sign up for a ClimateYard consultation today.