According to a star reporter of the St. Pete Times, Craig Pittman: Manatees may lose protection, protectors:"The state agency set to remove manatees from the endangered list plans to slash 90 positions from the division that enforces the boating speed zones designed to protect manatees."
and:
Despite the agency's patrols, 86 manatees were killed by boats in 2006, the second highest number since the agency began keeping statistics in the 1970s. As of July 31, boats had killed 48 manatees this year.
The idea that the state agency would cut its patrols while dropping manatees from the endangered list is "pathetic," said Helen Spivey, state co-chair of the Save the Manatee Club.
Thanks Rodney Barreto, and the rest of you Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commissioners, for nothing. You know that manatee's aren't like dolphins, that they don't know enough to dive when they hear a motor. You know they just swim near the surface as if they owned the water. They get squished between ships and seawalls. They need protection because we all know, they are a trusting creature that doesn't know how to get out of the way of harm.
5 comments:
Good thing that manatees are "cute" making them worth saving. They are actually imports from IndoChina not even native to Florida.I'm sure if they were man eaters you could purchase a hunting license from the state to get rid of them. The speed zones in effect are more to protect the wealthy owner's yachts tied to their waterfront property and keep the noise down while they soak in their hot tubs behind multi-million dollar mansions. They employed the environmentalists to execute their whims effectively.
April 17, 2007
Well all of those puff articles in the Herald about how much Rodney Barreto loved caring for the environment and that his job was a labor of love I guess were just Bull.... So is the Herald going to turn around and start telling the TRUTH now that they spent so much ink telling us stories? Are they going to realize that they have been taken for a ride?
Import from IndoChina? If that were true, wouldn't you be able to buy manatees at WalMart? They are a species native to Florida and the West Indies. And they're not all that cute, but they're definitely worth saving. Actually, too bad they're not "man eaters." It might cut down on the number of Jet Skiers in the Bay.
Manatees are "imports from Indochina" the same way Asian Elephants are imports from Africa. I see our first anonymous writer got their science degree from the same correspondence school that "W" got most of his science team from.
Manatees (West Indian, Amazonian, and West African) are members of the Sirenia order along with the Dugong and the now extinct Stellar Sea Cow. Each genetically distinct.
And I have to agree with the third anonymous. Manatees are about as cute as a truck tire bobbing in the water, but what does that matter? I want to save gopher tortoises, wood rats, and deltoid spurge (look it up) too.
I love Manatees. I see them often and I think they should be protected.
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