Manatees, a sentinel for humanity

The Florida Manatee still has not been re-upgraded to "endangered" and traditional ecological knowledge is needed

The old Lakota was wise. . . he knew that lack of respect for growing, living things soon led to lack of respect for humans, too.

― Chief Luther Standing Bear (1933)¹

Photo by NOAA on Unsplash

As the manatee goes, so goes humanity.

A sentinel species is an animal that can show us the health of their environment. If the environment is healthy, the sentinel species will be too. If the environment is not healthy, the sentinel species will be the first to show it. An issue this important should include all of our knowledge to bring to bear on this problem and that include traditional ecological knowledge.

The manatee is a sentinel species for Florida’s waters. They are an indicator of the health of our environment. When manatees are healthy, it means that Florida’s waters are healthy. When manatees are not healthy, it is a sign that something is wrong with Florida’s waters. Something is very wrong with Florida’s waters.

The past two years have seen unprecedented deaths of the Florida Manatee. Deaths come from collisions with boats, which is typical; but this year many more manatees were dying of starvation, and more than 1,000 manatees died of starvation, from the already small population of 6,000.² So far in 2022, more than 500 have died.³ Their habitat of seagrass and access to it are dangerously disappearing. (Adult manatees eat 32-108 lbs. of food each day, and weigh an average of 1,500-1,800 pounds.) In April 2021, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration declared the die-off an Unusual Mortality Event.⁴ We should recognize this sentinel message, not only because of the health of the manatee population but for what it means to our own existence.

The usual protestation about endangered species protection is how saving a rare animal does not outweigh economics and human immediate gratification (although economics is not a factor in whether to list a species as endangered in the Endangered Species Act). In the case of the manatee, before the epic die-out this past year, their mortality has been 30-50% attributable to motorboat collisions, often driven by drunken weekend warriors commandering chopping machines on the waterways of Florida.

However, the state took steps to address the public’s outrage about the killing and habitat destruction. The Florida Manatee Sanctuary Act of 1978⁵ was passed with a purpose and scope as follows:

(1) This rule chapter implements Section 379.2431(2), F.S., (the Florida Manatee Sanctuary Act) by establishing restrictions to protect manatees from harmful collisions with motorboats and from harassment; to protect manatee habitat, such as seagrass beds, from destruction by boats or other human activity; and to provide limited safe havens where manatees can rest, feed, reproduce, give birth or nurse undisturbed by human activity. The Commission shall only regulate motorboat speed and operation in areas where manatees are frequently sighted and the best available scientific information, as well as other available, relevant, and reliable information supports the conclusion that manatees inhabit such areas on a regular or periodic basis. Information considered by the Commission may include but is not limited to manatee surveys, observations, available studies of food sources, and water depths.

The law prohibits intentional or even negligent disturbance of any manatee. ⁶ For good reason, “negligent” disturbance is also illegal. Even touching a manatee will change its behavior in a way that will make it more likely to approach humans or boats and potentially be killed. In fact, touching a manatee even negligently will result in a fine of $500 or up to 60 days in jail. Under federal law, if a manatee is injured or killed, expect a $50,000 fine and possibly up to 1 year imprisonment.

Official state guidelines for boaters to protect manatees include appointing a person on your boat to watch for manatees, never to drive over a manatee, to watch for manatee “tail prints” in the water to avoid them, and to wear polarized sunglasses in order to see them below the surface of the water.⁷ Failing to follow guidelines could be evidence of negligence if a manatee is harmed or disturbed.

Photo credit: Lee County, State of Florida

Florida receives about 1.7 billion dollars in ocean recreation⁸ which includes boating, diving, snorkeling and fishing out of the 111 billion dollars each year for Florida tourism.

In the 1980s-90s, lobbyists resisted the protection of manatees at every point, even at one point in 1998, moving the management of manatees from the mammal protection division to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission to thwart the issuance of final regulations for boaters and visitors. The protection of the manatee was ignored in the interest of profiting in the tourism industry, being oblivious to the fact that if you kill the environment you have killed the golden goose.

When the last tree is cut down, the last fish eaten and the last stream poisoned, you will realize that you cannot eat money.

Cree or Osage Prophecy (1972) ⁹

There are four species of the manatee in the world — the West Indies Manatee, the Amazonian Manatee, the Antilles Manatee and the African Manatee. The Florida Manatee is a subspecies of the West Indies Manatee. It is protected under two federal laws, the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA). Its protected status is “threatened” under the ESA and “depleted” under the MMPA. The status of the manatee was changed from “endangered” to a lesser serious status of “threatened” in 2017, although significant recovery should have been required to make that change.

Traditional Ecological Knowledge and the Manatee

The Seminole Tribe of Florida and Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida have had a relationship with the manatee since before colonization.¹⁰ The first documentation of the Seminole people hunting and eating manatees come from Christopher Columbus notes on a manatee sighting as well as finding a mound of manatee skulls, after they had been killed and eaten by indigenous people.¹¹ Father Gaspar Carvajal also documented the use of manatees for food and their hides for protection by indigenous people when he wrote in the 1540s that indigenous people hunted manatees for food and used their hides for shields.¹² In this same period, manatees were classified as “fish” by the Catholic Church, so as to allow manatee consumption by Catholics on Fridays.¹³ One Catholic explorer, Acosta, writing in the late 1500s, wrote that, even with this permission, he felt guilty about eating manatees on Fridays because manatee meat reminded him of veal.¹⁴ All this is to say, the relationship between indigenous people and the manatee and the colonizers who were later introduced to the manatee by indigenous people has been going for centuries.

The Seminole Tribe of Florida has been working on manatee conservation since the 1970s. In 1979, they created the Seminole Manatee Recovery Program (SMRP) to help with the conservation of the manatee. The program has done research on manatees, created educational materials and worked on habitat protection. In 1994, they created the Seminole Tribal Manatee Sanctuary on Big Cypress Seminole Reservation. This 40-square mile area is a protected habitat for manatees. It is off-limits to hunting and harassment of manatees. The Seminole Tribe of Florida also has an agreement with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) to protect manatees. The State of Florida should engage in consultation with the Seminole and Micousukee Tribes in Florida who have centuries of knowledge to address this complex problem.

Conservation Efforts Underway

The Seminole Tribe of Florida is just one of the many organizations working on manatee conservation. Others include the USFWS, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC), SeaWorld, and zoological parks.

The FWC is the state agency responsible for managing Florida’s fish and wildlife resources. They work to conserve manatees through research, education and regulation. The FWC has a number of manatee conservation projects. One is the Manatee Rescue Program which helps to rescue and rehabilitate sick and injured manatees. They also have a project to study the effects of red tide on manatees.

In February 2022, several wildlife advocacy groups filed a complaint for declaratory and injunctive relief against the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service in the federal district court of the District of Columbia.¹⁵ Failure to update the conservation plans since 1976 was part of the complaint. June 1, 2022, a settlement was reached ¹⁶to enhance the conservation plans, but if they do not make seagrass —the manatees main source of food—- a protected part of the habitat, then little progress will be made. The settlement specifies that by September 12, 2024, the US FWS will file an updated critical habitat conservation plan in the Federal Register, making it legally binding.¹⁷

In signs that the State of Florida is no longer reluctant to protect the manatee but instead has recognized its importance to tourism and sustainability, Gov. Rick DeSantis budgeted $30 million in 2022-23 to set up joint incident response teams for rescue and rehabilitation of manatees, new facilities, more aerial research and documentation and providing food, like this year’s 200,000 pounds of food for starving manatees.¹⁸ Habitat conservation and restoration is conspicuously missing from the list of funding priorities and is highlighted only for “concentrated areas”. Restoration of seagrass will be key to sustaining the manatee population. Despite their nickname as a “seacow” they should not be domesticated and fed hay at feeding time as a permanent solution —- their natural seagrass has to be protected for their own natural foraging to continue.

The Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP) has being reviewed biennially by the National Academies since 2004 for scientific and engineering issues, by Congressional mandate.¹⁹ It is evident that they are not including input from the Seminole or Micousukee Nations. Not one member of the committee represents these interests. It is important to include traditional science in these reviews when there is a complex ecological problem and traditional science is available and indigenous people are willing to share it. The President has mandated that federal activities should incorporate international traditional ecological knowledge (ITEK), ²⁰ yet something as important as the Everglades restoration has ignored this mandate.

Why we should care

The manatee is important because it has a right to exist and it is part of our world and brings joy and beauty from its existence, embracing two of the three environmental ethical rules of Aldo Leopold.²¹ Collaborating with the Seminole Tribe and Micousukee Tribe can bring essential knowledge of this world to the complex problem of reversing this destruction to the species. It is important not only to Florida, but the rest of the U.S. and to the world. We must work together to conserve this amazing animal. Ignoring centuries of traditional ecological knowledge is just irresponsible and myopic. We can do better.

It is important to remember that the manatee is our relative. We all share the Earth as our home. Remembering Chief Seattle’s quote, “All things share the same breath, the beast, the tree, the man, the air shares its spirit with all the life it supports.”²²

1. Luther Standing Bear, “Land of the Spotted Eagle” (1933).

2. https://www.fws.gov/species/west-indian-manatee-trichechus-manatus

3. https://www.floridatoday.com/story/news/local/environment/2022/04/22/florida-manatee-deaths-top-500-almost-half-way-last-years-record/7397011001/

4. 16 USC § 1421h(6) The term “unusual mortality event” means a stranding that— (A) is unexpected; (B) involves a significant die-off of any marine mammal population; and (C) demands immediate response.

5. https://www.law.cornell.edu/regulations/florida/department-68/division-68C/chapter-68C-22 .

6. "It is unlawful for any person, at any time, intentionally or negligently, to annoy, molest, harass, or disturb any manatee." Manatee Sanctuary Act of 1978.

7. https://myfwc.com/media/7327/boaters-guide-living-manatees.pdf .

8. Gazal, K.; Andrew, R.; Burns, R. Economic Contributions of Visitor Spending in Ocean Recreation in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. Water 2022, 14, 198 at 12. https://doi.org/10.3390/w14020198

9. Cree or Osage Prophecy, and also first attributed to Alanis Obomsawin in a book of essays, “Who is the Chairman of This Meeting?” in a chapter called “Conversations with North American Indians” which contained comments made by Alanis Obomsawin who was described as “an Abenaki from the Odanak reserve, seventy odd miles northeast of Montreal.” at https://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/10/20/last-tree-cut/

10. https://seminoletribune.org/manatees-were-once-important-seminole-food-source/

11. J.L. Baughman, Some Early Notices on American Manatees and the Mode of Capture, Journal of Mammology, Vol. 27, No. 3, pp. 234-239, at 234.

12. J.L. Baughman, Some Early Notices on American Manatees and the Mode of Capture, Journal of Mammology, Vol. 27, No. 3, pp. 234-239, at 235.

13. J.L. Baughman.

14. J.L. Baughman.

15. https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/s3-wagtail.biolgicaldiversity.org/documents/2022-02-01-Manatee-Revised-Critical-Habitat-Complaint.pdf

16. https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/programs/biodiversity/pdfs/manatee-habitat-settlement-2022-06-01.pdf

17. https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/programs/biodiversity/pdfs/manatee-habitat-settlement-2022-06-01.pdf

18. https://flgov.com/2022/05/02/governor-ron-desantis-announces-historic-30-million-in-funding-for-manatee-rescue-programs-and-habitat-restoration/

19. Water Resources Development Act of 2000.

20. https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/111521-OSTP-CEQ-ITEK-Memo.pdf

21. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Sand_County_Almanac

22. No specific source, and many quotes from Chief Seattle are undocumented, even his famous speech is questionably translated; but his speech as well as this quote does reflect the worldview of many Native Americans.