While our troops are in the Middle East liberating the people of Iraq from the tyrannical rule of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, genocide is taking place in our own backyard and it needs to be stopped immediately.
In Florida, a certain population has been summarily decimated at increasing rates over the last 30 years. Their homes have been overrun and disproportionately subject to pollution. Their pathways of travel have been interrupted by locking gates which can be responsible for the separation of families and even individual deaths. They have been harassed in their homes and their defenders have been harassed in the legislature. And it is not uncommon to see many members of this population with large slashing scars on their backs from encounters with those threatening their very existence.
Manatee, Trichechus manatus, Trichechus senegalensis, and Trichechus inunguis, developed during the Eocene period and have existed for around 50 million years. However, it is in the last 50 years that this population of docile, slow-moving sea mammals has seen its future put in jeopardy.
Throughout the world Manatee are native to the waters of West Africa, South America, and the Gulf of Mexico. In the United States a subset of West Indian manatee called the Florida manatee makes its migratory home in and around the rivers, bays, canals, estuaries and coastal areas of the State of Florida. And it was around 30 years ago that the Florida Manatee was placed on the endangered species list.
As the human population of Florida increases by approximately 1,000 people every day, and the number of engine-powered watercraft navigating Florida's inner and coastal waters increases exponentially, so does the threat to the survival of the manatee.
According to data from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission of the Florida Marine Research Institute, watercraft collisions were responsible for almost a third of all manatee mortality last year, more than any other specific cause of death. These deaths occur when Manatee floating near the surface are crushed by the hull impact of a speeding boat or they are slashed beyond the point of healing by motor boats' propellers. In shallow waters, Manatee may be crushed between the hull of a boat and the water bottom, or crushed in a docking structure.
Manatee swimming upstream through rivers or canals are also crushed or drowned in flood gates and canal locks. Additionally, other human-related factors responsible for the increasing deaths of Manatee are fishing nets, fishing hooks, litter, poaching and hazardous waste, which may reduce the manatee's natural level of resistance to disease. While indirect manatee mortality brought upon by the destruction of the habitat has yet to be measured, it can also be considered severe.
All these factors coupled with the manatee's naturally slow birthrate -- mature females give birth to a single calf once every two to five years (Florida Marine Institute) -- the manatee has been shoved to the brink of extinction. According the the Sea World/Busch Gardens Animal Information Database, the Florida manatee is one of the most endangered marine mammals in the United States.
Knowing the devastating trickle-down effect of the loss of the manatee from the coastal ecosystem, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife service has set aside sanctuaries for Manatee; however, these areas have been too small and too few. Furthermore, certain measures have been instituted such as speed restrictions, the establishment of narrow channels in which boats must travel during seasons in which Manatee are present and the placement of buoys marking protected areas. Despite these measures though, the numbers of manatee mortalities caused by watercraft collisions has only steadily increased, and the total mortality rate for Florida Manatee has risen an average of 5.3% every year since 1976.
If we do not act with more vigilance, Manatee could be saying goodbye to 50 million years of existence.
Marine wildlife education needs to be a fundamental process of the Florida boating license application. The fines for watercraft speeding in certain areas needs to be greatly increased. And simply more areas need to be established as sanctuaries. The effort to save the Manatee begins with educated and aware citizens who comprise an active community, and this is the type of activism the University of Oklahoma needs to foster if it is going to continue its move upward in the ranks of universities around the country.
This is the type of cause of which individuals campaigning for UOSA need to express an awareness, so that this campus does not become trapped in its own bubble.
The day that the U.S. Navy employs dolphins to help diffuse underwater mines is certainly the day that we need to extend a hand in reciprocity to all our aquatic friends. We have to save the manatee now more than ever.
-- Carlo Romero is a university college freshmen. His column appears on alternate Mondays. He can be reached at dailyopinion@ou.edu.
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