For Immediate Release: November 19, 2003

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWCC) met today to re-evaluate the state’s endangered status of the manatee. After discussion, the Commissioners voted to defer the downlisting issue until a later date.

"We think the Commissioners made the right decision," said Patti Thompson, Save the Manatee Club Director of Science and Conservation. "The state needs time to fix their flawed system and develop appropriate listing/delisting criteria before they make this critical decision. We simply do not have enough information at this time to do an adequate assessment of the manatee population."

A recently released manatee population model developed by Michael C. Runge, a scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), predicts a grave situation confronting the manatee in both the Southwest and Atlantic regions of Florida – areas where the vast majority of manatees are found. According to the USGS model, the rate of increase in watercraft-related manatee mortality from 1990 to 1999 in the Atlantic and Southwest regions far outstripped the estimated growth rate of those populations. Runge states, "If boat mortality rates continue to increase at the rates observed since 1992, the situation in the Atlantic and Southwest regions is dire, with no chance of meeting recovery criteria within 100 years." Furthermore, a review of the future risks to the manatee population by scientists at the FWCC's own Florida Marine Research Institute determined that the Florida manatee population could be reduced by more than 50% within the next 45 years.

"The assessment of the biological status of any species should be based on the scientific benchmarks similar to those supported by the Manatee Population Status Working Group, an organization of scientists with background in population modeling," said Thompson. "Those benchmarks include stable or increasing survival rates of all age classes, stable or increasing reproductive rates, comprehensive habitat protection, and significant reduction of human-related mortality. Finding the answers to these questions takes time and yet they are the questions we need to answer if we honestly want to ascertain whether or not the manatee population is in recovery mode."

See a copy of the USGS manatee population model in PDF format