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Thursday, January 9, 2003

Manatee boat deaths set record

By IVONA LERMAN | News-Journal Environment Writer

DAYTONA BEACH — Overall manatee deaths dropped in 2002, but the number killed by boats kept climbing, exceeding the state record by more than a dozen dead sea cows, state officials said Wednesday.

Out of 305 manatees that died in Florida in 2002, 95 died from boat injuries, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officials said. The previous watercraft mortality record was set in 1999, when 82 out of 269 manatees died from severe boat wounds. In 2001, 81 out of 325 dead manatees were killed by boats.

Locally, mortality numbers turned less gloomy than statewide totals for 2002. In Volusia County, 13 manatees died with three killed by boats, and in Flagler county, three manatees died, including one killed by a boat.

State officials said one of the reasons for the high number of manatees killed by boats last year may have been an unusually warm winter in which both boaters and manatees got more days to cruise the waterways.

“We are dealing with a critter that´s moving around,” said David Arnold, chief of the commission´s Bureau of Protected Species. “If we had a bad year, maybe more manatees decided to move outside of areas where we asked boaters to slow down.”

State officials and environmentalists said this week´s statewide totals weren´t a surprise. A lot of manatees got killed by boats in the first part of the year and by the end of September the number of deaths because of boats had already surpassed the previous record of 82.

Judith Vallee, executive director of Save the Manatee Club, said manatee deaths from boats have been steadily rising, and last year´s record number is more proof that manatees need more protection from boats.

Meanwhile, boaters have argued that more deaths indicate that there are more manatees in the state.

In any event, Arnold said this year's numbers alone don´t say much about overall manatee population trends or the success of current government regulations. “It´s one more data point in a long series of data points,” he said. “We have to look at long-term trends.”

Arnold also said the state did a lot this year to protect manatees. Apart from designating 10 new protection areas, commission officers spent 29,000 hours enforcing manatee zones, he said.

Apart from boats, other factors contributed to manatee deaths in 2002. State records show natural causes, including red tide and disease, killed 59 manatees; cold-stress killed 17; and nine manatees died from other human causes such as entanglement in fishing lines and crab traps. Five were killed in flood gates and locks.

Also, 53 newborn calves died of natural causes; 67 manatees died of undetermined causes.

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