Manatee Festival

Guest Column: Stay the course to preserve a living part of Old Florida

My first encounter with a manatee was a little more than 40 years ago when I was about 5 or 6 years old. My father and I were fishing on Crystal River, catching few fish but enjoying the mist rising in spirals through the cold morning air. As we dangled our lines, a giant gray beast drifted silently and slowly underneath our boat.

It seemed so immense at the time. My father's fear of being tipped over was betrayed when he barked out the order to sit absolutely still. I watched it pass under our boat with a mixture of fear and fascination. My father told me it was a manatee and that they were very rare; he had only seen a few in his 20 years on the river. He also told me that it could easily flip us over if it got angry.

In those days, the waters of Crystal River were still gin clear; the bottom was a clean patchwork of white sand and gardens of eelgrass. You could travel the river all the way to the Gulf of Mexico, watching the bottom glide underneath you the entire way, as I often did with my dad. Back then, only a few fisherfolk, divers and a smattering of others even knew that manatees spent the winter in Crystal River. There was always great excitement and curiosity when one was sighted.

Manatees are native to Florida, and their fossil record is extensive. Their only close cousin is the dugong of the Indo-Pacific. Both are herbivorous, aquatic mammals that evolved from a common ancestor of elephants.

Manatees are a fundamental part of Florida's unique identity, and they are the source of many place names. If they were to disappear, it would not only be a biological tragedy, but a cultural one as well.

I know of no other creature on earth that suffers so much at the hands of man and his machines, yet will approach and actively solicit human contact -- not to be fed or rewarded in any other way, but to be touched. We are fortunate to have this unique, massive animal within close reach, if only to remind us of our not-so-distant past when Florida was still wild.

In the late 1960s when I was a boy, there was virtually nothing known about manatees or even why these bizarre creatures visited Crystal River. That changed when Daniel "Woody" Hartman arrived from Cornell University to conduct the first in-depth study of wild manatees.

Hartman wrote an article that appeared in National Geographic and, a few years later, the film crew of Jacques Cousteau arrived to shoot the first of many documentaries that would center on the manatees of Crystal River.

In 1968, after Hartman finished his research, we introduced the idea of Crystal River's becoming a manatee sanctuary. The initiative was quickly dismissed by the city and county governing bodies because it was believed, at the time, that the ensuing rules would have a negative impact on the local tourist economy.

It wasn't until the late 1970s that boat speed zones and sanctuaries were established in Crystal River under the Endangered Species Act. The opposition to the new rules, again on the grounds that it would hurt the local tourism economy, was considerable and vocal.

In fact, I remember after one public meeting where emotions ran very high, the tires of my U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service truck, where I was working as a manatee biologist, had been slashed. Personal threats and epithets yelled across the water were common. Change is always difficult and remains so today.

It is interesting to me now that those very people who shouted the loudest are also many of the ones who have gained the most financially from the recognition and tourism that manatees have generated for Crystal River.

Finally, in the mid 1980s and in response to major development plans on most of the islands in Kings Bay that included condos and causeways, the importance of Crystal River and its manatees was acknowledged nationally and internationally when it was designated a national wildlife reserve.

The price that was paid, besides the monetary cost that was largely provided through donations, included slower boat speeds and a few sanctuaries where manatees could seek respite from the growing hordes of divers and boats.

The benefits, besides the income generated through tourism, was one of the few coastal areas in Florida that still enjoys expansive natural views from nearly every waterfront home on Kings Bay, and one of only two known healthy, growing populations of manatees in the state.

If we decide to succumb to litigation and outside pressure that weaken conservation actions or implement unnecessary or misdirected regulations to appease the courts, we will deviate from a successful approach that may turn the tide and reverse what small gains in manatee numbers it has taken us a century to achieve.

Hold the successful course of proactive manatee conservation initiatives to balance rising threats. Give scientists the time, resources and knowledge to do an adequate analysis of future risks and manatee population trends (probably in less than two years) rather than forcing less-certain analysis or reactionary decision making because of litigation and stakeholder pressure.

We need to rebuild trust and strengthen dialogue among stakeholders in order to find common solutions. Manatees have been swept into a whirlpool of definitions, issues, principles, positions and politics. No one wants to see this unique animal eventually disappear from Florida waters.

In the future, we will have fewer management options available to us because of environmental changes and coastal development pressures beyond our control. If we relax conservation actions in the face of so much uncertainty and manatee numbers begin to decline, it will be even more difficult to implement certain alternatives available to us today.

From this biologist's point of view, the manatee's status is not critical, but because of predictable, increasing levels and numbers of threats and alterations to their coastal habitat, the manatee's future survival in Florida is certainly not secure.

- Dr. James Powell is a native Floridian who has studied manatees for more than 30 years in Florida, the Caribbean and Africa. He has been employed as a biologist by federal, state and nongovernmental agencies and received his doctorate in zoology from Cambridge University. He currently serves as director for aquatic conservation for Wildlife Trust, a nonprofit research and conservation organization.

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