Florida’s waterways are home to beloved and iconic gentle giants, manatees. These half-ton, lumbering mammals – with their wrinkled, whiskered skin and paddle-shaped tails – are believed to have evolved from the same grass-eating land ancestor as elephants over 50 million years ago. Florida manatees are famously playful, sensitive, and inquisitive. They spend much of their lives grazing, cow-like, on meadows of seagrass; congregating in warm-water refuges; expressing emotion through complex chirps, whistles, and squeaks; nursing and caring for their young; nuzzling each other with their noses; hugging with their flippers; and maneuvering slowly at around 3 to 5 miles per hour through the state’s rivers, estuaries, and shallow coastal waters. These remarkably peaceful herbivores have no natural predators and express no aggression towards other creatures. Despite being so gentle and defenseless, they can live more than sixty years in the wild. But, today, few do.
The iconic Florida manatee is facing a multitude of intersecting, human-caused crises. Nearly all of the estimated remaining 7500 Florida manatees have been scarred by boat strikes, while more than half are estimated to have the toxic pesticide glyphosate coursing through their veins. Years of worsening water quality from Florida’s unfettered agricultural pollution and real estate development have resulted in increased toxic algae blooms that block sunlight from reaching the seagrass meadows upon which the manatees depend. Fishing gear entanglement, habitat loss, and climate change are also driving major manatee losses. In 2021, Florida’s manatees died en masse, with a record 1,100 manatees – more than 12 percent of the state’s total manatee population – perishing. Most died of starvation.
It’s hard to imagine a more lovable or compelling creature than a manatee, but enthusiasm is not enough to save them. For manatees to have a chance, that love needs to be translated into enforced protections for both these animals and their habitats.
Our guest, Patrick Rose, has devoted the past 45 years to propelling Florida manatees to public prominence and to advocating on their behalf with extraordinary dedication, creativity, and effectiveness. Rose is the executive director of the Save the Manatee Club. An aquatic biologist, he is one of the world’s leading experts on the Florida manatee. He was the first biologist hired by the State of Florida to do work related to protecting manatees, and has advocated on their behalf before the Florida Legislature, governor, and Cabinet, provided policy guidance and direction for state-wide recovery efforts, and served as a member of every federal manatee recovery team. As one of his colleagues once put it, Rose is the ‘MVP of manatee protection.’ Over the past couple years, as manatees have made headlines for the crises they face, he has served as their spokesperson and much needed champion.
Rose’s recommendations for how you can help manatees:
Sign up for Save the Manatee Club Action Alerts
Volunteer for Save the Manatee Club
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