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CRAIG PITTMANWildlife commissioners say they need time to fix their process for ranking endangered animals.
MARATHON - Mired in controversy over how Florida protects rare animals, state wildlife commissioners agreed Wednesday to postpone a decision to take manatees off the state's endangered species list. The commissioners also put off until next spring any new boating regulations on Tampa Bay.
The delay in changing the manatee's endangered status - for at least a year - delighted environmental activists, who think the manatee remains in danger of extinction.
But it upset boaters, who have pushed for the change for more than two years and have seen the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission delay a decision three times.
Some boaters accused the commissioners - all gubernatorial appointees - of putting off the manatee vote until after November 2004 so it's not an issue while Gov. Jeb Bush's brother seeks re-election.
"It's not a scientific decision. It's a purely political decision," said Tom McGill, a member of a Brevard County boating group called Citizens for Florida's Waterways.
R.H. "Dusty" Harrington of the Florida boaters' rights group Standing Watch called the yearlong postponement "bogus - and I'm a card-carrying Republican."
But Commissioner John Rood, a Jacksonville developer and major fundraiser for President Bush's campaign, said next year's election had nothing to do with the delay. "We never even thought of that," he said.
Commissioners postponed the vote, he said, because their process for ranking animals as endangered is flawed and will take months to fix.
Environmental activists have complained about the process since it was adopted in 1999.
They contend that it sets such a high threshold for an animal to be classified as endangered that even the Florida panther, with only 80 to 100 left, would not qualify. The listings are important because counties and cities use them in deciding what development to allow in wildlife habitats.
As recently as May, though, commissioners brushed aside such complaints, voting to downgrade the red-cockaded woodpecker from threatened to a species of special concern. Wildlife commission executive director Ken Haddad warned at the time that the woodpecker decision was a preview of what would happen to the manatee.
Last month, though, commissioners spent a full day listening to experts, who convinced them that they need to change their listing system.
"I believe we finally understand the problem," Rood said. Only after those flaws are fixed can the commission make a sound scientific decision on the manatee's status, he said.
Manatees are listed as endangered by both the state and federal government. They have been on the federal endangered list since the first list was prepared in the late 1960s.
Throughout the 1990s the number of manatees killed by boats rose so rapidly that it alarmed environmental groups. They joined forces with animal rights activists to sue the state and federal agencies that were supposed to protect manatees.
The lawsuit settlements produced a wave of new regulations that have angered boaters and waterfront developers.
New rules and stepped-up enforcement seem to be having an effect, wildlife officials say. Last year a record 95 manatees were killed by boats, but so far this year boats have killed only 67.