Gentle Mammals Of the World, Unite!

posted by The Sailor @ 6:50 PM Permalink

(Photo from www.flickr.com)

Manatees may lose protection

The Florida manatee, this state's imperiled environmental icon, last year suffered its most dismal year on record.

Of a population of about 3,200, 416 died in 2006, the highest number of deaths recorded in 30 years of statistics. Many died in collisions with boat propellers.
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According to the memo sent from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to the White House, the agency was going to say that the manatee "no longer meets the definition of an endangered species."
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"I would hope that instead of using the Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protect Act as devices to limit the growth of boating in Florida," according to a letter from lobbyist Wade Hopping "that we would focus on a plan that would calculate with scientific certainty how many manatees Florida waters can support and proceed to develop a system to ensure that number of healthy manatees share the waters of the state with Florida's responsible boaters." Developers and boating groups gained a major victory last year, when Florida's seven-member Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission approved dropping the endangered label in favor of the threatened label. All seven members of the commission were appointed by then-Gov. Jeb Bush, R.

Does the Bush family have a hypocrisy gene?

"The Florida manatee is the state’s official marine mammal and is a distinctive and valuable natural resource," reads an official proclamation issued from the Governor [Jeb Bush]. "The residents of Florida must be made aware of the plight of these endangered marine mammals."

It's incredible that Bushco would consider that any species that lost 1/8 of its population in the last year isn't 'endangered.'

I know, it may seem trivial to complain about manatees being killed off when humans are dying in Mr. Bush's Excellent War, but it's all part and parcel to this misAdministration which pays lip service to 'sanctity of life' while killing off people and species at an ever increasing rate.

More fun facts about manatees:

The manatee is an air breathing marine mammal.
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They are mainly herbivores
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They have a large flexible prehensile upper lip, that acts in many ways like a shortened trunk, somewhat similar to their cousins the elephant. They use the lip in food gathering and eating, yet also in social interactions and communications. Their small widely spaced eyes, have eyelids that close in a circular manner, and they may be able to see in color. They emit a wide range of sounds used in communication, especially between cows and their calves, yet also between adults to maintain contact and during sexual and play behaviors. They may use taste and smell, in addition to sight, sound, and touch to communicate. Manatees are capable of understanding discrimination tasks, and show signs of complex associated learning and advanced long term memory.[4]They demonstrate complex discrimination and task-learning similar to dolphins and pinnipeds in acoustic and visual studies.[5]

And they don't start wars.

Labels: Bush, endangered species, environment