TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) – It has continued to be a hard winter for Florida’s West Indian manatee as the unusual mortality event (UME) continues on the east coast and water temperatures have cooled over the last few weeks.
The Florida Wish and Wildlife Conservation Commission held an update on Wednesday regarding the UME, and reported 97 total manatees have died in the state so far this year, as of Jan. 28.
The FWC and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service are continuing their unified joint command during the ongoing UME at a temporary field response station at the Florida Power and Light’s Cape Canaveral Clean Energy Center, where there is also a temporary feeding site for manatees. Officials spoke on their ongoing efforts.
Martine de Wit, a manatee research scientist at the FWC Fish and Wildlife Research Institute, said this winter is not a situation like 2010, when there was a catastrophic cold event in the state. Rather, she called it a “typical Florida winter.”
“But why we’re seeing these issues with manatees on the Atlantic coast right now, specifically in the central region, is these animals are compromised. It’s an ongoing starvation event and many of these animals are dealing with sub-optimal nutrition for probably over a year now,” she said.
de Wit said that when there are colder temperatures, the manatees should normally be able to handle it, but “now when their health is not optimal, they are unfortunately affected by that.”
When asked if all deaths were due to starvation, de Wit clarified that as manatee deaths are currently so high, they are not performing a necropsy on all carcasses. She said their approach is to sample a certain number for health investigations.
In what researchers have seen, starvation is the most common cause of death at this time, according to de Wit.
Andy Garrett of FWC and the Joint Unified Command Rescue and Recovery Branch said in addition to seeing more dead manatees, they are seeing more in distress on the east coast.
“Unfortunately, with cold comes animals aggregating in large amounts. So hundreds of animals at the warm water site. So to be able to catch a single animal that’s in distress out of hundreds of animals has been a challenge for us,” he said.
Capacity at rehabilitation facilities continues to be an issue for them as well, Garrett said, as SeaWorld is the only facility that is currently not at capacity, though manatees are being released when they are well.
Garrett said, historically, manatees are released near where they were rescued, but that has not been the case.
“But in this situation with the way the UME is and the lack of forage, we are moving animals,” he said. “Adult animals are being moved further south, where we know they will have some forage. Young manatees, rescued as calves, that normally we would release near the power plant, are being released in Blue Springs State Park where we know there’s plenty of vegetation for them to forge.”
The temporary feeding response at Cape Canaveral Energy Center is ongoing. Manatees are being fed romaine and butter lettuce, as well as cabbage, as instructed by experts who rehabilitate manatees.
More food is being given to manatees at the site as more arrive in cold weather, according to Ron Mezich of FWC and the Joint Unified Command Provisioning Branch Chief.
While impossible to make sure every manatee is being fed, as they estimated to have seen 785 animals on Jan. 30, a cold day, officials said lettuce is being spread out to the animals.
Staff is working on taking photos of manatees to identify them as winter goes on. Dr. Tom Reinert, with FWC and the Joint Unified Command Spokesperson, said they are anticipating feeding manatees next year as deaths continue to rise and the lack of seagrass goes on.
More updates are now expected weekly. All dead or distressed manatees should be reported to the FWC Wildlife Alert hotline 888-404-FWCC.