Since the feeding program started, it has served between 25 and 800 manatees a day. CNN reports that around 350 manatees are currently coming to a temporary field response station in Cape Canaveral to get their daily servings of romaine and butter lettuce. To help stave off starvation, officials with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) have staged a salad intervention of sorts. Both river habitats have long served as winter homes for manatees.
According to WUSF, at least 58% of the seagrass in the northern Indian River Lagoon has been lost since 2009, and at least 96% of the Banana River‘s seagrass is gone. Many of those deaths were due to water quality issues impacting the growth of seagrass, one of the manatee’s primary food sources.īoat strikes, habitat loss and toxic algae blooms also threaten the species, but far too many are dying of simple starvation. During the first nine months of 2021, nearly 10% of Florida’s manatee population died-more than double the five-year average. Sadly, manatees are also dying at an alarming rate after only being taken off the endangered species list in 2017. There wasn’t red algae at the time, but I wonder if there were other environmental hazards like plastics that kill the manatees. The boats slow down near the island most of the time, but it could have been a boat collision. They didn’t know what killed the manatee. My kids went kayaking around the island and saw the saddest sight - a bone-white manatee floating upside down.
They don’t need to do much - just emerge from the water to pop their heads out once in a while and our phones are all out ready to record them. There are always throngs of people parking their golf carts when the manatees come to this small dock to just hang out. My favorite thing about North Captiva Island in Florida is the manatee sightings.
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