Manatees will starve to death again this winter, where's the plan?

Kimberly Miller, Palm Beach Post
·1 min read
Vultures pick at the corpses of manatees on the beach of an island in the Indian River Lagoon. Photo by Philip Stasik
Vultures pick at the corpses of manatees on the beach of an island in the Indian River Lagoon. Photo by Philip Stasik

More than 10% of Florida's manatee population died in the past year, mostly from starvation after we've so polluted our waterways that sea grass won't grow.

Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission Executive Director Eric Sutton said in October that things were happening to ameliorate the situation this winter as manatees return to warm-water areas that have no food, but what?

As my former colleague S.V. Dáte used to say - "Show me the work product."

So I asked FWC for an update on what was happening, and copies of agendas and minutes from the many, many meetings supposedly occurring to stem the manatee apocalypse.

Here's the answer I got: "While there is no formal ‘committee’, relevant FWC and USFWS staff continue to discuss the UME (unusual mortality event). They interact regularly, but no agendas are created nor are meeting minutes captured from those exchanges."

Let's hope we don't see a repeat of last winter. We can't say we didn't see it coming.

Live lightly.

Kimberly Miller is a veteran journalist for The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA Today Network of Florida. She covers weather, climate and the environment and has a certificate in Weather Forecasting from Penn State. Contact Kim at kmiller@pbpost.com

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Another manatee apocalypse looms, wheres the plan to save them?