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Letting up on the throttle for the sake of manatees
© St. Petersburg Times During Sunday afternoon outings or class field trips to Tampa's Lowry Park Zoo, the dark room that opens onto the big glass window of the manatees' deep pool is full of eager children and their curious parents and teachers. They come to watch the big animals sway and dip in the water and munch on the occasional chunk of romaine lettuce. The manatees' popularity is measured in visitors' surveys. The sea cows, Stormy, San Remo and Pipe, are the most popular exhibit at the zoo. This fact is impossible to reconcile with a competing piece of reality: Lots of people in Florida regard the manatee as a nuisance that interferes with that birthright a lot of us think we inherit when we move here. I mean the right to drive your boat or your Jet Ski as fast as you want, wherever you want. Lowry Park Zoo's manatee exhibit is as much hospital as tourist draw. It is one of three facilities in the state where game officials take injured manatees. The zoo has treated more than 100 in 10 years. San Remo and Pipe were both hurt by boaters or fishermen. Each had rope or fishing line tangled around a front fin. Part of Pipe's fin had to be amputated. They will stay at the zoo until they recover. There's no telling when that will be -- just as there is no telling where the political battle over manatee regulation will lead. Last week, after a Hollywood movie producer met with the governor, the state decided to break its own rules and gave the moviemaker the right to film high-speed chases through Biscayne Bay and the Miami River. The millions of dollars at stake in the movie counted for more than the safety of the manatees who swim in the bay and the river. Observers were brought in to look out for manatees, and wouldn't you know -- filming had to be stopped seven times to make way for the manatees. What Jeb Bush did was completely in character. For the past two years, environmentalists have been in court, urging federal officials to create waterfront development rules along the coastal areas where manatees congregate as well as special refuges and sanctuaries. In the last days of the Clinton administration, a settlement was reached. But now officials with President Bush's administration are in effect saying they didn't know what they were doing when they reached it, and that the settlement would be illegal if carried out. The reason for all this? The president's brother. Our governor has contended the state should be writing the manatee rules. The people who work for his brother in Washington are willing to defer to him. Mercifully, the federal judge hearing the case, Emmet Sullivan, isn't buying. Two weeks ago, he ordered federal officials to come up by November with a specific list of places where boaters would either be banned or face reduced speeds. This has a direct impact on Tampa Bay. Weedon Island and Apollo Beach are just two of several sites where the tougher rules would be applied. The boating industry and boaters' groups were enraged. I've been trying to feel their pain. I can't. If we were talking about the interstate and not the Intracoastal, would we just as blithely argue about lifting speed limits for pleasure's sake? Florida is home to about 3,300 manatees. Last year, nearly 10 percent of the population, or 325, was killed. That's a record. Seventy-one of those were killed by boaters. You drive our roads and you'd think we were all on the same side. Nearly a half million Floridians have bought Save the Manatee license plates. The tags are everywhere. But the truth is, we are schizophrenic about the manatee. We give with one hand. We take with another. And we refuse to answer this little question: What is so awful about having to slow down? -- You can reach Mary Jo Melone at mjmelone@sptimes.com or (813) 226-3402.
 © 2006 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times
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Times columns today Mary Jo Melone Ernest Hooper John Romano From the Times Metro desk |
