Released: July 25, 2002

Save the Manatee Club, Defenders of Wildlife, The Humane Society of the United States, the Sierra Club, and a coalition of more than a dozen other groups that won a landmark settlement agreement compelling the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to institute measures to protect manatees, has decried the latest attempt by the Bush Administration to renege on its obligations.

In response today to a court order that it furnish an appropriate remedy for the violation of its obligation to protect manatees, the Bush Administration now claims that the entire settlement agreement is illegal because it "unlawfully" constrains the discretition of the federal government to do nothing to protect manatees. Earlier in July, Judge Emmet G. Sullivan ruled that the federal government had illegally delayed designation of manatee sanctuaries and refuges, intended to reduce mortality due to boat strikes.

"Just when you think this administration has bent over just about a far backward as it can in order to avoid its legal obligations to protect manatees, something completely off the wall like this comes along. To claim that the proper way to comply with a court order is to pretend the whole thing never happened marks a new low -- and a novel approach -- in Gale Norton's contorted attempts to avoid complying with laws that say her department needs to protect species at risk," said Eric Glitzenstein of Meyer & Glitzenstein, the lead attorney representing the coalition of manatee supporters that had won the settlement agreement.

The Fish and Wildlife Service claims that it is avoiding measures to reduce collisions with boats that kill dozens of manatees each year, in order to allow the state of Florida to implement its own protections. In mid-July Judge Emmet G. Sullivan of the Federal District Court in the District of Columbia ruled that no such delay was allowed under the settlement, and that potential state action did not excuse the federal government from acting, especially in places where the state does not intend to enact manatee protections. Glitzenstein noted that the state was making no efforts to protect manatees in some areas where mortality is the highest, including Lee, Collier, and Duval counties. Lee County set an all-time record for manatee deaths from boat strikes last year and is on a similar pace in 2002. Manatee deaths state-wide are up to 67 as of July 12, a record-setting pace, and more than 50% above the average for this time of the year.

Judge Sullivan's ruling made special note of the role that politics appears ot have played in the Fish and Wildlife Service's violation of the settlement.