It's like living on a fixed income, but your monthly expenses keep going up. That's got to catch up with you. FWC scientists will be carefully monitoring the deaths this year, to try to detect whether the population is going down in any parts of the state. According to Kipp Frohlich, biological administrator for the FWC's Bureau of Protected Species Management, there were 22 watercraft collisions by that same date in 1999. One way to protect manatees more is better watercraft law enforcement.
More humans mean less habitat for manatees and other wildlife.
So, in addition to better law enforcement, we also need better growth management regulation. Increasing human population impacts the manatees in many different ways, and one of the most significant is damage to the seagrasses, the primary food of the manatees. Water clarity can be reduced by turbidity from sediment runoff from construction of buildings on land, and from farms, and from sediment churned up by lots of boat propellers. And pollution continues to increase in some areas, from pesticides and herbicides, urban run-off, and septic tanks. That causes problems for seagrasses too.