By the Orlando Sentinel Editorial Board
Are Florida’s iconic manatees endangered? The answer to that seems obvious: Of course they are.
Over the past five years, researchers have tallied more than 3,600 deaths. That’s out of a population that, as of a few years ago, tallied no more than 11,730. And the threats to manatees aren’t abating: Their main food source, the once-abundant seagrass beds that also served as spawning grounds for a vast array of marine life, has all but disappeared from some Florida waterways.
Speeding boats inflict sometimes-lethal wounds, and have already claimed a victim in 2025. When the temperature drops as low as it has this week, many Floridians start to worry about the deadly danger of cold stress, which can make manatees lethargic or unwilling to leave warmer-water springs to seek food. In the first 10 days of 2025, the state has logged 19 manatee deaths, including two babies — and that was when the water was relatively temperate. It will be another few weeks before the next official update.
But science and brutal numbers aren’t enough to define the threat to this gentle marine mammal. There’s a role for politics as well. So when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service was asked to upgrade the protection level of Florida’s manatees, which had been knocked down from “endangered” to the lower level of “threatened” in 2017 — they said no.
The decision, released Jan 13, stunned manatee advocates who had been confident the federal agency wouldn’t ignore the thousands of manatees that have died in what Florida wildlife officials dubbed “an unusual mortality event.” Federal officials argued that the lower status wouldn’t hinder efforts to help manatees, but being deemed “endangered” usually means more money for habitat reclamation and other recovery efforts.
The ruling contradicted the overwhelming consensus of outside experts that the species was in more danger than perhaps ever before. It looked past the horrifying death tolls of the past several years. It ignored the obvious truth: The biggest threat to manatees has been, and will remain, the number of new people crowding into the Sunshine State every year.
And it denied the harshest reality of all: The same threats that are killing manatees are attacking the quality of life that so many Floridians take for granted.
“Problems are accelerating,” says Pat Rose, executive director of the Save the Manatee Club and a marine biologist. “We predicted it was going to get much worse, and it did.”
Right now, the club is pushing back against a facet of the rule that would define “critical habitat” for manatees too narrowly, which is likely to reduce the amount of funding for expensive seagrass restoration, and the much more expensive changes needed to keep it from dying in the first place.
Seagrass beds are dying because the water in many of Florida’s iconic water bodies is dirty. That’s particularly true in the waters of the Indian River Lagoon, which stretches from Ponce Inlet to Martin County. The lagoon system — long considered one of the most diverse estuaries in the world — has lost 95% of its seagrass beds, largely due to the pollution from poorly maintained septic tanks, failing sewer plants, runoff of fertilizer meant to keep waterfront yards green along with oil and gas that filter into the water. The same sources are also fouling the springs that offer manatees warm-water havens.
Within the past decade, disgusting algae blooms that cover waterways with thick mats of floating slime have given Floridians a hint of what’s in store if humans don’t clean up their act. That’s just what can be seen — and smelled — from shore: The algae blocks sunlight from reaching seagrass beds, killing them even faster.
Thus, manatees are literally starving to death, many so emaciated that they look as if they’ve been chopped in half longitudinally.
But a glimmer of hope remains.
There’s a Floridian in the White House now, and Donald Trump is stocking many high-level positions with people from his adopted home state. They understand how much Florida’s residents love manatees, and more importantly, they understand that protecting manatees also means protecting the sparkling waterways, the billions of dollars from boating and recreation, the tens of billions of dollars in waterfront property values and the health and happiness of the people who live here.
Last year, Gov. Ron DeSantis pledged $330 million to help restore manatee habitat. The year before, Rep. Randy Fine, a Brevard Republican currently running for Congress, wrote an op-ed opposing a bill that would make it easier for waterfront developers to kill seagrass — which doesn’t add up, he wrote.
We could say the same of the infuriating, baffling decision to deny Florida’s manatees increased protection. These creatures are in danger — and they deserve all the human help they can get, help that will aid human beings as well.
The Orlando Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Opinion Editor Krys Fluker, Executive Editor Roger Simmons and Viewpoints Editor Jay Reddick. This opinion piece was originally published by the Orlando Sentinel, which is a media partner of The Invading Sea. Banner photo: Manatees in Crystal River (iStock image).
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