Opinion: Say no for manatees

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission is meeting in Fort Myers today to discuss a vital question: Should manatees be dropped from the state's endangered species list? It should be a very short session. After all, how long does it take to say no?

The commissioners can expect to hear self-serving bleatings from the recreation boating and building industries whose members want to shove the manatees out of their way as they shoehorn in more waterfront homes and roar through the state's congested waterways.

These big-money forces will offer this flawed argument: The number of manatees is rising; therefore, they no longer need special protection. Lost in that tortured logic is the fact that if the numbers indeed are increasing (a debatable point, given the difficulty in counting swimming creatures), it is only because of the very protections they hope to erase.

Expect the boating industry also to try to spin or ignore altogether the latest report from the Florida Marine Research Institute, which showed that Florida boaters killed more manatees in 2002 than ever before. Of the 95 killed, 14 died in Lee County, not far from where the commissioners will be gathering. Lee was second only to Brevard County as the deadliest playground for the sea cows.

Despite these damning findings, the pro-business forces hope to sway the commission to ease manatee protections with the hope that federal officials, who are watching the state discussions closely, will follow suit. That would be disastrous for a species that even the most optimistic count puts at fewer than 3,300 around the state. By contrast, the number of registered boaters in Florida tops 1-million and is steadily climbing.

The manatees, of course, won't have a chance today to plead for protection from the whirling propellers and hammering pile-drivers that routinely rip apart their hides and habitats. It is up the manatee advocates, and the commission members, to protect this unique and endangered species.

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