For Immediate Release: April 14, 2005

Today, the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWCC) voted to adopt amendments to state rule criteria that govern the listing and delisting of Florida’s imperiled species. According to representatives from Save the Manatee Club, the amendments only slightly improved the rule criteria, which will cause many of Florida’s imperiled species to be in even greater danger of extinction. The Club strongly objects to the failure of the state agency to adopt substantive changes that would consider individual species’ life histories rather than a one-size-fits-all approach, which they feel will lead to numerous species being downlisted or delisted before they are recovered. They say untimely reclassifications of species may result in the rollback of protective regulations and will lead the public to believe that species are doing better than they really are.

Under the rule criteria as amended, Florida’s imperiled species will be classified based solely on the World Conservation Union’s (IUCN) guidelines. Environmentalists argue that the FWCC adopted the IUCN definitions for “endangered” and “threatened” but did not properly align the names for these categories of imperilment. Because of this, Florida’s endangered species such as manatees, panthers, and sea turtles, could potentially be reclassified as “threatened” – or receive an even lower classification – all because of the misalignment of category names and definitions. Now that the rule amendments are adopted, FWCC plans to move forward with the completion of a manatee biological status review precipitated in 2001 by a petition from an angler’s lobby group, the Coastal Conservation Association.

“State decision-makers are listening to special interests like never before. They have already downlisted the endangered red cockaded woodpecker to a species of special concern. It will only be a matter of time before the state receives more petitions from special interest groups to downlist other species whose habitat requirements get in the way of developers’ profit-making. Sales prices for individual boat slips built over submerged lands held in public trust have soared to over a million dollars in some cases. With so much money to be made at the public’s expense, it’s no wonder that the agencies are being pressured by the legislature to open the floodgates of development without adequate checks and balances to protect the environment and especially our imperiled species,” stated Patrick Rose, the Club’s Director of Government Relations.

Using one of the state’s listing/delisting criteria, a species would have to undergo or be at the risk of undergoing an 80% decline in its population in order to be listed as endangered. Listed species that have undergone precipitous declines historically, but are not continuing to decline at an 80% rate, could be downlisted despite the fact that their numbers are only a small fraction of their original populations. Under this steep 80% decline, a species could go extinct before conservation measures could be implemented. Club representatives fear that management of imperiled species is going to be crisis-oriented, unnecessarily expensive, and ineffective. They say state rule criteria especially do not apply to long-lived marine species like manatees and sea turtles.

Earlier, a state review of 24 listed species found that a majority of the species could be downlisted or even delisted when the state’s flawed criteria was applied. It is possible that the Florida panther, with an estimated 80 individuals living in the wild, could fall down a category from endangered to threatened status. The federal Marine Mammal Commission has stated that the Northern right whale – the most endangered marine mammal in America – would likely fall down a category as well. The black bear would have a good chance of being delisted altogether, paving the way for the bear to once again be hunted. “People are going to think that any species undergoing a downward category change is on the road to recovery purely because the FWCC is obstinately refusing to align the IUCN categories and names for these categories with their own listing/delisting guidelines,” said Patti Thompson, the Club’s Director of Science and Conservation.

Save the Manatee Cub also expressed outrage over proposed bills making their way through the legislative process that will decrease protection for wildlife habitat, thereby placing native species at even greater risk. “Developers are having a field day in Tallahassee. There are proposed bills to weaken the environmental review process by eliminating federal reviews, authorizing local governments to construct public marinas and boat ramps using general permits that would circumvent environmental reviews altogether, and weakening local growth management plans and state oversight,” said Rose.

Club representatives point out that the rule criteria for the listing and delisting of Florida’s imperiled species contains a marine caveat, which acts like an exemption for fish species with management plans. At the very least, they argue, there should also be a caveat for long-lived marine species with management plans, such as the manatee, which has a federal recovery plan. “No matter what happens on the state level, manatees will still be listed as endangered by the federal government. Unfortunately, special interests will be pushing for species’ reclassifications as a way to rid themselves of what they believe to be excessive regulations,” said Thompson.

So far this year, red tide has claimed the lives of at least 52 manatees in southwest Florida and 19 manatee deaths from boat collisions were reported statewide in the first three months of 2005, four more than the number of manatees killed by boats during the same time period in 2004.

“Manatees and, in fact, all of the state’s wildlife will continue to face mounting pressures from Florida’s fast-paced growth. To illegitimately downlist a species won’t do anything to protect our wildlife. We want the state to base the biological status of any species on scientific benchmarks, including stable or increasing survival rates, comprehensive habitat protection, and significant reduction of human-related mortality,” stated Rose.

“The FWCC has demonstrated once again that they lack the will to do the right thing – they are more interested in bowing to political pressure. This is a disgraceful failure of both leadership and stewardship and puts the responsibility on the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service to ensure that federally listed species will be fully protected in Florida,” concluded Thompson.

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