2021 Already All-Time Record Year For FL Manatee Deaths; 881 Confirmed; Starvation Driving Die-Off
On a bright morning in July, a crowd gathered on a boat ramp in St Augustine, Florida, awaiting the arrival of a young male manatee named Gerard. The marshy Matanzas River gently flowed around oyster beds and sawgrass islands as biologists organized their equipment. Nearby about a dozen onlookers paced by the shore, waiting to catch a glimpse of Gerard’s return to the wild following weeks of captivity.
Earlier in spring, beachgoers discovered Gerard stranded and sunbaked in Palm Coast, about 25 miles south of St Augustine, on the Atlantic Ocean. Samaritans draped wet towels over the feeble marine mammal, keeping him cool and shaded from the subtropical sun, as a rescue team raced to the scene. Gravely thin, Gerard was transported to Jacksonville Zoo, where he spent the next 10 weeks in critical care until he was plump enough to re-enter the wild.
Gerard was one of the lucky ones. Hundreds of Florida manatees have died this year along the state’s east coast in what the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has labeled an “unusual mortality event”. At least 881 manatees have died in Florida since January, far exceeding the annual average of 578 deaths between 2015 and 2020.
Ground zero for the sudden uptick in deaths is the Indian River Lagoon, a 156-mile-long estuary that serves as a seasonal habitat for thousands of manatees. Decades of water pollution from farming and real estate development has pushed the ecosystem to the brink, causing the manatees to perish from an almost entirely manmade disaster: famine.
EDIT
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jul/31/florida-manatees-famine-face-uncertain-future