Pollution Endangers Florida Manatees: Conservationists Try Everything Including Lettuces to Save the Beloved Marine Mammals

In an effort to save the manatees in Indian River Lagoon, Florida, conservationists tossed romaine lettuces into the lagoon. At first, the beloved manatees stayed away from the leafy green. The experiment was a testament to the dire times for marine mammals. Humans dump pallets of greens to feed the manatees in the lagoon's warm waters that have been ravaged by pollution for the past decades, destroying the delicate seagrass that fills the manatee's diets.

Eventually, a pair of manatees approached. Using their prehensile lips, they grabbed and nibbled on the lettuces. More followed. On the coldest days, hundreds of manatees came over. Over the course of the three-month feeding, the manatees ate every scrap of roughly 200,000 pounds of lettuce hurled from above, reports CNN.

Manatees in Florida

(Photo: EVA MARIE UZCATEGUI/AFP via Getty Images)
A manatee swims in a recovery pool at the David A. Straz, Jr. Manatee Critical Care Center in ZooTampa at Lowry Park in Tampa, Florida, on January 19, 2021. - Red tides caused by human use of fertilizers, loss of food in their natural habitat, and collision with boats are the leading causes of manatee deaths. And in 2021, the numbers have skyrocketed. According to the Florida Wildlife Service, from January 1 to April 16, 674 manatees were found dead in Florida waters. That's nearly triple the manatee deaths recorded during the same period for the past five years.

Floridians have always cherished their local manatee population; the plump and gentle giants have always captured the highs of human imagination; however, people have failed to care for the marine animals' environment. This now puts the species at the utmost risk. Today, manatees are disappearing in alarming numbers, and humans are trying various crisis rescue measures in a desperate attempt to keep the beloved mammals alive.

Manatees in the region had had a short success when their status was upgraded from endangered to threatened in 2017 after years of boater education on avoiding deadly strikes. However, today, the manatees are again put in peril because of starvation, reports East Bay Times.

Along Florida's Atlantic coast, the die-off of manatees began last year after the Indian River Lagoon, a 156-mile stretch that had been a seasonal refuge for manatees, turned into a barren underwater de4sert. Decades worth of wastes from leaky septic tanks, farm runoff, and development field algal blooms that blocked sunlight and choked seagrass that composed the manatee's diet.

ALSO READ: Critically Endangered Hammerhead Shark Spotted Further South of Australia Where They Are Rarely Seen

Feeding Lettuces to Threatened Sea Cows

The experiment feeding experiment, conceived and executed by federal and state wildlife officials, was field by $116,000 in public donations from across the US. Between January 1st and April 1st, the number of confirmed manatee deaths fell to 479, down the 612 deaths reported in 2021. However, in 2020, the deaths averaged 202.

The year's dip in manatee deaths does not equate to starvation being erased and the experiment's success. This summer, scientists will review the environmental conditions, necropsy results, and other data to make more complete assessments of the condition of Florida manatees, explains Dr. Mardine de Wite, a veterinarian with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

Likewise, despite the multitude of efforts to educate and preserve the beloved Florida manatees, everyone agrees that the best long-term solution is to restore the lagoon habitat via a wide range of efforts, from replanting seagrass beds to improving stormwater drainage. However, the project is expensive and may take years to complete.

Floridians share a special affinity with the local manatees. Threatened with extinction, the beloved sea cows were adopted by people that made charitable donations to support their conservation.