Manatees join list of budget cut targets

Lowry Park's Zoo's manatee hospital is in jeopardy of losing half of its operating budget.

By MIKE BRASSFIELD, Times Staff Writer
Published August 30, 2007

TAMPA - Since 1991, the manatee hospital at Lowry Park Zoo has treated nearly 200 sea cows that have been slashed by propellers, hit by boats, suffering from cold stress or poisoned by red tide.

Now its funding is in jeopardy as the state prepares for another round of budget cuts. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission put manatee rehabilitation on a list of proposed cuts for the Legislature to consider during a special session in three weeks.

The roughly $350,000 a year that the zoo's hospital would lose accounts for nearly half its operating budget.

"It would be enough of a blow to our program that, if it doesn't completely go away, it would be severely cut back," said Dr. David Murphy, the zoo's longtime veterinarian. "So when the public calls with a manatee behind their house that's bleeding from a boat strike, there may not be anyplace for that animal to go."

In the last two years, the zoo has released 22 treated manatees back into the wild. Florida's manatee population is estimated at about 3,000.

Lowry Park has an observation area where zoo visitors can watch as staffers and volunteers work on sick, 1,000-pound manatees in 25,000-gallon rehabilitation pools.

The wildlife commission, like all state agencies, was under orders to offer cuts of 4 to 10 percent of its budget because of Florida's sagging economy. It targeted 10 percent, nearly $17-million.

That includes $2-million a year for manatee hospitals at Lowry Park Zoo, SeaWorld and the Miami Seaquarium, as well as state support for the University of Florida's marine mammal veterinary program.

"Obviously, these programs are valuable and valued by our agency," said Wendy Quigley, a spokeswoman for the state's Fish and Wildlife Research Institute. "They're all important. It is our sincere hope that very little would be actually eliminated."

Also on the list: cutting the marine patrol and game wardens, alligator trapper stipends, Red Tide monitoring research, land management and lake restoration.

Quigley said the wildlife commission put the manatee hospitals on the cuts list because of the relatively low number of animals they treat. From 1997 to 2006, she said, the three hospitals rehabilitated and released an average of 15 manatees a year.

Lowry Park Zoo argues the state is getting a good bang for its buck; the zoo raises donations for a dollar-for-dollar match with its state funding for the manatee hospital, said zoo spokeswoman Dana Metz.

Some speculatethe wildlife commission put the manatee hospitals on its budget cuts list because lawmakers are unlikely to really cut these programs.

Murphy, the zoo's vet, isn't counting on that.

"When the state Legislature goes into a special session, anything could happen," he said. "We would appreciate any support that the public will offer."

Mike Brassfield can be reached at 813 226-3435 or brassfield@sptimes.com.

[Last modified August 30, 2007, 00:36:50]