Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.63.0606090111020.29477@panix3.panix.com>
From: Alan Sondheim <sondheim@panix.com>
To: Cyb <cybermind@listserv.aol.com>,
"WRYTING-L : Writing and Theory across Disciplines" <WRYTING-L@LISTSERV.UTORONTO.CA>
Subject: Manatees lose "endangered" status in FLA (fwd)
Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2006 01:11:53 -0400 (EDT)
From Gerald Jones. Apparently 3000 of a species is considered okay. It
wouldn't fill a small town.
I hate this fucking country. - Alan
Subject: Manatees lose "endangered" status in FLA
Posted on Thu, Jun. 08, 2006
WILDLIFE Manatees lose their status as 'endangered' in state The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission voted to reclassify the sea cow as a 'threatened' species. Activists call the move by the state a `recipe for extinction.' BY CURTIS MORGAN cmorgan@MiamiHerald.com
AP FILE PHOTO
CUTE AND HARMLESS: Manatees play in the waters of Homosassa Springs, a favorite seasonal hangout for the aquatic mammals, in 2003.
More photos
The manatee, long the poster mammal of the environmental movement in Florida, lost its endangered status from the state on Wednesday.
The controversial move was the latest and biggest political win for boating and building interests, which five years ago launched a campaign against a growing array of restrictions intended to protect the lumbering sea cows.
Whether dropping down a notch to ''threatened'' on Florida's list of imperiled species will cost the manatee more of its state protections remains to be seen. The mammal still is covered under the federal Endangered Species Act, but the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service also is in the process of reevaluating that designation.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission approved the downlisting in a 7-0 vote, citing population estimates that have more than doubled in the past two decades to roughly 3,000 animals.
The commission also insisted that removing the manatee's endangered tag wouldn't roll back regulations and might actually enhance them once a management plan is approved next year, a step that will formally change the manatee's status on the list.
''The categories indicate a level of threat and not a level of protection,'' said Ken Haddad, the commission's executive director, referring to the state's three-tier classification system -- endangered, threatened and special concern.
Environmentalists rejected the assurances, saying the change had little to do with the prospects for Florida's manatees and everything to do with a change in the rules when the commission adopted a heavily disputed listing policy last year that they say sets the bar for ''endangered'' status too high.
In a packed and emotional meeting in West Palm Beach, activists pleaded to maintain the endangered label and told the commissioners they were sending a wrong and potentially damaging message that manatees were doing fine.
The agency's own biological assessment predicts no possibility of extinction over the next century, but a coin-flip chance the population could drop by 30 percent over the next 45 years. It also details a long list of threats -- increased deaths from boat strikes, red tide, habitat loss and the potential shutdown of coastal power plants that provide the thin-skinned mammals with warm refuges during the winter.
''This is a recipe for the extinction of manatees,'' said Drew Martin, a member of the Loxahatchee chapter of the Sierra Club.
Commissioners also voted to remove the bald eagle from the state's list, where it had been classified as ''threatened.'' They based their decision on surveys that show a dramatic rebound in nesting from 88 nests in 1973 to about 1,400 last year and a 300 percent increase in population to more than 3,300 birds.
They elevated two other species to ''threatened'' -- the Panama City crayfish and the gopher tortoise, a species whose population has dropped by at least half, a decline partially attributable to a state permitting procedure that allowed developers to bury them alive in the burrows they dig in dry hammocks, coastal dunes and pine scrub. Wildlife managers did not offer a pledge sought by activists to immediately stop the gruesome practice, which has killed about 74,000 tortoises since 1991. But they said they were working on plans to eliminate it and make relocating the reptiles easier.
Management plans, which will spell out the protective measures, are expected for all four species sometime next year.
The manatee was the focus of the most intense debate, with some four dozen manatee advocates outnumbering representatives of the marine and boating industry about 4-1.
The appeals were often emotional. A few activists wept at the podium. One activist crushed a small china pitcher under her shoe to illustrate what happens to the brittle bones of manatees when struck by boats.
Environmentalists said their issue wasn't with the science or numbers, but with the nomenclature.
When the state adapted international standards for its listing, it made one critical change, tinkering with category labels. The international ''endangered'' became the state's new ``threatened.''
To qualify as ''endangered,'' a species in Florida must face an 80 percent change of declining over 10 years or three generations, live in less than 40 square miles or have fewer than 250 adults.
That is so severe, activists said, that by the time a species was labeled endangered, it will difficult and expensive to protect, if it can be protected at all.
Haddad and commissioners rejected that argument. While they were troubled by the ''polarized'' view of the move, they said environmentalists were making too much of a word change and should trust that the state will protect its iconic species.
The state had already imposed a network of slow-speed zones and other protective measures and spent years working on its listing standards and manatee studies.
''Threatened'' by the state definition still means at a ''very high risk of extinction,'' said Commissioner Brian Yanbonski.
'If somebody heard the term `threatened,' in my mind, that doesn't mean happy campers,'' he said. ``This is not a popularity contest. The listing process is science-based.''
Michael Kennedy, past chairman of the Coastal Conservation Association of Florida, said boaters and fishermen didn't want to see the manatees disappear either; they just wanted reasonable access to waters.
''The level of environmental concern is so much higher than it was 20 years ago that we all should be proud of where we are,'' he said. ``This is a success story.''