Florida wildlife officials are distributing 3,000 pounds of lettuce a day to save starving manatees

[FM123]

(CNN) Florida's manatees -- which are dying at an alarming rate, largely from starvation -- are being treated to tons of lettuce a week as part of a new feeding program that state wildlife officials say is showing signs of success.

An average of 350 manatees a day are now coming to eat the greens being distributed at a temporary field response station in Cape Canaveral, along Florida's east coast, officials from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) said Wednesday.

The program was launched earlier this year as officials work to address the unusual manatee mortality event along the state's Atlantic coast. Last year, more than 1,000 manatees in the state died, according to the commission -- the highest recorded number of manatee deaths in decades.

snip

"At this point in time, we have been successful. Manatees are eating the romaine," said Mezich. "We are exposing large amount of animals to this food source and we are making a difference."

Read More: https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/16/us/florida-starving-manatee-feeding-program-trnd-scn/index.html

[DFW]

1. I'm surprised Florida Republicans haven't shown up armed and in large numbers

What an easy bunch of endangered animals to kill!

[Hortensis]

2. It's been illegal in the past to feed manatees, and we never did

when we had a place on a canal they visited. It wasn't that long ago, but at that time we didn't see those in that area suffering. Yet. The red tide algae that's so harmful to them didn't come that far up the estuary from Tampa Bay.

At least they're carrying some through while they grow sustainable solutions in a rapidly changing environment.

[onethatcares]

3. I think it's the green algae

that is coming in from the east coast of the state that is causing the starvation deaths. The amount of nitrogen that seeps into the fresh water from golf course, development and fertilizing big sugar causes the real sea plants to die by oxygen deprivation while the slime algae feeds off of it.

On the west coast of the state we have a similar pollution factor and we also have to deal with higher water temps and things like phosphate pit run off contributing to the death of the bay. Piney Point still hasn't been dealt with and if we get abnormal higher amounts of rain there are many other phosphate pits ripe for overflowing/rupturing.

Sadly, in the late 70s Tampa Bay was cleaning itself with the help of a Democratic government and a campaign to stop letting raw sewerage from flowing into it. It was really working and the filtration plants (seagrasses) were re emerging along with the fishing industry. It's changing in reverse now.

[Hortensis]

4. You're right of course. Stream of consciousness in the middle of the night,

musing on "our" manatees.

We're on freshwater marsh/lake now, but we still visit around the Tampa Bay area; Terra Ceia preserve near Piney Point is a favorite. It's a thin mercy that, though bad, devastation of food supply, eelgrass, etc, on the west lags that on the east, and we already know some things that work and have learned from some mistakes.

The international rise of ultraconservatism came at a horrendously bad time for climate change, but is also one of its effects.

[Kablooie]

5. One of the causes too.

There might have been an effort years or decades ago to control it if the conservatives hadn’t flat out denied it existed.

Global warming was hypothesized in the 1920s and became real threat by the 70s.

[Hortensis]

6. Umhm, cause and effect, bad all along. Speaking of the 70s,

since 1971 the League of Conservation voters has kept voting records, plus annual and lifetime scores, for every member of congress and both parties on a whole list of these issues.

By then Republicans were already getting worse and worse. I'm guessing beginning around 1965 when President Johnson sent a letter to congress warning congress would have to act to stop global warming? The Republicans acted, all right.

It's election year, but not much need to look candidates up. These days almost all newer Repubs, who have no old records to average in, have proudly loyal lifetime ratings of 0. Almost all Democrats are 100% or close to annual, newer ones usually 100% lifetime.