Record Manatee Deaths On W. FL Coast From Red Tide; Unknown Cause Killing Dozens On East Coast
Even as a Red Tide algae bloom is wiping out a record number of manatees in southwest Florida, a mysterious ailment is killing dozens more manatees on the state's east coast. So far, state biologists have been unable to pinpoint the cause.
Pat Rose, a former government manatee biologist who is now executive director of the Save the Manatee Club, said he could not recall another time when manatees were being killed in such numbers on both coasts at the same time.
Since last July, 55 manatees showing similar symptoms have died in the Indian River Lagoon area — 25 in just the past month, according to Kevin Baxter, a spokesman for the state's Fish and Wildlife Research Institute in St. Petersburg. There is no Red Tide bloom on the east coast, and the winter has not been cold enough to kill manatees. So far, Baxter said, no sick manatees have been rescued, availing biologists with a live specimen to study for clues.
They suspect the manatee deaths may be connected to back-to-back blooms of a harmful algae, one that has stained the Indian River Lagoon a chocolate brown. Over the past two years the blooms wiped out some 31,000 acres of sea grass in the 156-mile-long lagoon that stretches along the state's Atlantic Coast. Manatees eat sea grass, but with the sea grass gone, they may have turned to less healthful sources of nutrition.
EDIT
http://www.tampabay.com/news/environment/wildlife/scientists-puzzled-by-mysterious-ailment-killing-manatees-on-east-coast/2109640