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Brown-Waite pushes to keep manatee protections in place

By BARBARA BEHRENDT and CRAIG PITTMAN
Published April 11, 2007

BROOKSVILLE - A downgrading in the protection status of manatees from endangered to threatened is an environmental backslide that doesn't sit well with U.S. Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite.

On Tuesday, a day after the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service released its status report on the health of the manatee population and the recommendation to reclassify the species, Brown-Waite fired back.

In a letter to the agency's director, Dale Hall, the congresswoman urged the Fish and Wildlife Service reconsider the facts and keep important manatee protection measures in place.

She also is seeking signatures of other members of the Florida delegation.

Manatee populations in a small portion of the animal's habitat, Blue Spring in Volusia County and the Crystal River in Citrus County, have shown increases, but that represents only 16 percent of the manatees in Florida.

In other areas, populations are "stable at best or may be declining," Brown-Waite wrote.

"As members of the Florida Delegation, we are gravely concerned that the FWS is considering downgrading the West Indian Manatee ... from endangered to threatened."

She goes on to point out that, in 2006, a record number of 416 manatees died, many as a result of collisions with boats.

"We question how the FWS can ignore these statistics and choose to downgrade a species that was on the brink of extinction," Brown-Waite wrote.

According to the latest figures from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Research Institute, 2007 numbers are also not looking good for manatees. Through the end of March, 101 manatees have died including 13 from boat strikes and 35 from natural causes.

In a press release on Tuesday, state officials said that 20 of those deaths are thought to have been caused by the latest outbreak of Red Tide.

In her letter, Brown-Waite says that her fear is that manatee protections will be "thrown aside" if the status of the animals is changed.

"Without the correct designation of 'endangered," Florida's manatees will lose all the protections for which Florida and the FWS have fought so hard," she wrote.

This is not the first time Brown-Waite has weighed in on issues with the Fish and Wildlife Service.

Late last year, she lead the Florida delegation in a letter to Secretary Dirk Kempthorne supporting the return of much-needed funding to national wildlife refuges including those at Chassahowitzka and Crystal River.

Budget cutting has cost the Chassahowitzka National Wildlife Refuge Complex a staff position even though those refuges, which it administers, were responsible for the high-profile protection programs for both manatees and whooping cranes.

Barbara Behrendt can be reached at behrendt@sptimes.com or 352 754-6117. Craig Pittman can be reached at craig@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8530.

[Last modified April 11, 2007, 07:27:58]