ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — When August Owen goes paddle boarding on the water next to Coffee Pot Park in St. Petersburg, she’s always on the lookout for manatees.
“It’s really exciting because they are so cute, and it’s just fun swimming with them," said Owen.
Her friend Kaitlyn Orosz is visiting from New York. For her, spotting manatees is an extra thrill.
“It’s really fun because I’ve never really seen them before," Orosz said.
Regan Whitlock is an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity.
His group helped file a petition with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to increase protections for manatees by classifying them as endangered.
The nonprofit said the Fish and Wildlife Service made a mistake when it downlisted manatees from endangered to threatened in 2017.
But in the last two years, Florida has seen record numbers of manatees die. Nearly 2,000 were killed by algae blooms that are caused by pollution runoff.
Those algae blooms, in turn, kill sea grass, the manatees' main food source.
“We hope through protecting the manatee that we can increase funding through the legislature and can get new agency personnel tasked with protecting the manatee on a daily basis, and the public can understand that we need to do more," said Whitlock.
Experts said most of the manatee deaths were caused by pollution in the Indian River Lagoon on Florida's east coast. But our area has been hit hard as well with pollution and boat strikes.
Florida’s manatee population has dropped by 20% in the last two years.
“It’s clear that manatees need additional recovery measures to get back on that positive path and to preserve that species, an iconic Florida species, for years to come," said Whitlock.
The Fish and Wildlife Service is expected to respond to the petition this week.
The hope is that the manatee classification will be moved to endangered by the end of the year.
