Urge President Biden to Come to the Aid of Manatees

The Issue:

Fueled by high levels of nutrient pollution over many decades, the Indian River Lagoon National Estuary (IRL) has suffered a series of harmful algal blooms, leading to massive losses in seagrass coverage. During the 2020-2021 winter season, there was very little seagrass or vegetation for imperiled manatees to eat in the immediate vicinity of warm water locations along the IRL, and many manatees suffered and died from malnutrition. We need to make sure this never happens again.

What You Can Do:

Please take a couple of minutes and urge President Joe Biden to come to the aid of manatees and the Indian River Lagoon. This will ensure that our aquatic ecosystems are nursed back to health and will benefit manatees and other wildlife, people, and Florida's economy.

Recipients

The President Donald J. Trump

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Message

Please help imperiled manatees and the Indian River Lagoon National Estuary.

Dear [Decision Maker],

Please come to the aid of manatees and the Indian River Lagoon National Estuary (IRL) in Florida by allocating more resources to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and directing them to investigate the situation in the IRL and develop contingency plans to avoid future mortality events.

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The Indian River Lagoon is one of Florida's most important estuaries. The once lush seagrass-based lagoon supported dolphins and sea turtles and was well known as a prime fishery in addition to comprising critical habitat for thousands of Florida's imperiled manatees.

As the direct result of human derelictions over many decades, the IRL has suffered a series of harmful algal blooms, leading to massive losses in seagrass coverage, an important food source for manatees. This led to the recent deaths of a heart-rending number of manatees this winter from malnutrition and starvation. Read a recent column by Bob Graham, former Florida Governor and U.S. Senator, and singer/songwriter Jimmy Buffett: https://www.tampabay.com/opinion/2021/04/08/lets-save-floridas-manatees-column/

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) needs to investigate the situation in the IRL and develop contingency plans to avoid future mortality events. However, they need resources to do this. The federally-managed Manatee Recovery Program was once the pride of the FWS. Now it is underfunded and neglected, leaving manatees and their aquatic habitat to suffer the effects of pollution from agriculture and development. Staffing for the manatee recovery program has been reduced, despite the growing problems manatees have faced, since they were prematurely downlisted from "endangered" to "threatened" in 2017.

The FWS needs to immediately reconvene an expert-based Manatee Recovery Team and the Manatee Warm-Water Task Force to accomplish essential recovery tasks and prevent more catastrophes. The FWS should also ensure health assessments are done on manatees using the IRL as well as research on manatee habitat use. With the current devastation of manatee forage in the IRL, this research is especially critical to understand the causes and cures for this problem.

Excessive human-produced nutrient pollution is a growing threat to all seagrass communities wherever they are found. These broken ecosystems need to be repaired, just like our failing bridges and highways, for the sake of manatees and other marine life as well as for people and tourism in Florida, which is one of the state's greatest sources of income.

Thank you for your consideration.

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