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grass in the lagoon, their primary food
source. While it’s worse in Brevard
County, it has happened all along the
lagoon. Mike Conner, Indian Riverkeeper,
reports severe seagrass die off
in Martin and St. Lucie counties.
“Where once you had healthy seagrass,
now there is just white sand on
the bottom,” he said.
It’s not just manatees being affected.
Conner says there has been an alarming
decline in populations of game fish
FRED MAYS
in the southern lagoon. The whole food
Chief biologist Martine
chain is being threatened.
deWit of the Florida Fish
and Wildlife Conservation
SEAGRASS DISAPPEARING
Commission says
The primary cause of seagrass loss
the loss of seagrass in
is pollution and algae blooms. The
the lagoon is unprecedented,
leading to
sunlight can’t get to the bottom of
manatee deaths.
the lagoon and the grass dies. There
is no quick solution. The Marine Resource Council gave the
lagoon in Brevard County an F in its water quality report
card this year.
The solutions aren’t easy or cheap and progress will be
slow, causing concern for the coming winter.
“We need to think about supplemental food sources,” says
Patrick Rose, executive director of the Save The Manatee Club.
How that would work is problematic. “We haven’t worked
that out yet,” Rose says.
It also runs afoul of state and federal regulations. Manatees
are a threatened species and it is illegal for people to feed them.
Rose says there will need to be more
rescues, where stricken manatees
are captured and taken to places like
the Sea World manatee rehab center,
where they are nursed back to health.
But there are only a few manatee rescue
centers in the state and most are
at capacity.
Attempts are being made to restore
the lagoon’s water quality, but those
are long-term solutions. Brevard
County has a special sales tax to generate
money for lagoon cleanup. That
tax will generate more than $400 million
over 10 years. Duane de Freese,
executive director at the Indian River
Lagoon National Estuary Program,
says it will really take billions of dollars
SAVE THE MANATEE CLUB
Patrick Rose, executive
director of Save The
Manatee Club, says
more food sources need
to be found.
to do the work right. Brevard’s problems are caused by
rapid population growth, causing more storm water runoff,
septic systems leaks and fertilizer runoff.
In the southern lagoon, the water quality is impacted by
discharges from Lake Okeechobee. The State of Florida,
the Army Corps of Engineers and the South Florida Water
Management District have $2 billion to clean up the lake and
the discharge, but they’ve been at it for four years without
significant water quality improvement.
There have been large manatee die-offs before, but not from
starvation. In 2010, 480 manatees died in the lagoon because
of an especially cold winter. This time around, the cause of
the manatee’s plight is much more complex and long-term.
Scientists and experts are bracing for continuing bad news.
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