The proposed revision includes recommendations to Federal, State and local agencies to help them better identify and minimize causes of death and injury to manatees. It will also assist them to better protect and oversee essential manatee habitat and monitor the population status of this endangered species. The plan also promotes the coordination of recovery activities and monitoring and evaluating the progress of recovery efforts. The Florida manatee is found primarily in coastal areas of Florida and southeast Georgia, although individuals range seasonally westward into Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana on the Gulf coast and north through the Carolinas into Virginia and Chesapeake Bay on the east coast. Manatees are large, aquatic herbivores that feed opportunistically on a variety of submerged, floating, and emergent vegetation in marine and fresh water habitats.
Shallow grass beds with ready access to deep channels are preferred feeding areas.
Manatees frequent canals, creeks, bays and lagoons, particularly near the mouths of coastal rivers and sloughs, for feeding, resting, cavorting, mating, and calving. When ambient water temperatures drop below 68 degrees Fahrenheit in autumn and winter, manatees aggregate at natural or artificial warm water refuges or move to southern Florida. Most artificial refuges are created by warm water outfalls at power plants or paper mills. The Crystal River National Wildlife Refuge in Citrus County is the northernmost refuge used regularly by manatees on the west coast. Most manatees habitually use the same warm refuges each year.