Record Deaths Of Manatees Prompt Urgent Need For New Rehab Center

TARPON SPRINGS, FL — Florida's gentle giant, the manatee, is in trouble.

As toxic red tide rages in the waters around Tampa Bay and the seagrass beds that provide the manatee's major source of food diminish, the sea mammal is dying at an alarming rate.

According to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, 850 manatees have died in 2021. That's nearly 10 percent of the 8,810 manatees that inhabit the waters around Florida. That surpasses the previous highest statewide death rate of 830 manatees in 2013.

The FWC said boat strikes are the leading cause of deaths, but researchers are becoming increasingly concerned about the toxic impacts of red tide and manatees starving due to loss of seagrass beds due to pollution and algae blooms.

This has prompted the Clearwater Marine Aquarium to move up its schedule to build a manatee rehabilitation center at Fred Howard Park in Tarpon Springs.

"This is the perfect storm this year," Dr. James Powell, executive director of the aquarium's research institute, said. "I've never seen it this bad, and I've been studying manatees, believe it or not, for over 50 years."

For more than 10 years, the Clearwater Marine Aquarium has been involved in the Manatee Rescue and Rehabilitation Partnership along with other organizations including ZooTampa, SeaWorld Orlando and Mote Marine Laboratory & Aquarium.

While the aquarium has been rescuing, rehabilitating and releasing cetacean (whales and dolphin), sea turtles and North American river otters since the 1980s, until now, its work with manatees has been limited to rescuing, transporting them to other facilities and tracking wild manatees around the world.

"What we're talking about today is the next phase of it for us," Powell said. "We're going to go from just doing the rescues and the transport to actually having a facility ourselves where we can rehabilitate and nurse the animals back to health."

The first step, Powell said, is to refurbish the 40-foot wide, 8-foot-deep, 75,000-gallon pool opened in 2019 at Fred Howard Park and used previously as an off-site stranding facility for rescued dolphins and whales. The pool requires a stronger filtration system to accommodate manatees.

The aquarium also plans to refurbish two nearby 20-foot pools for severely injured manatees.

"Ultimately, our goal is to add capacity, to provide infrastructure, to add support and also add staff members to assist with this threatened species," Kelly Martin, director of animal care at the Clearwater Marine Aquarium, said.

"As a working marine life hospital, it is our duty to help where the need is the greatest, and right now manatees are in critical need," Martin said. "This is part of our emergency response."

But it doesn't come without a price tag, said Powell. CMA officials estimate it will need $2 million just to upgrade the facility to house six manatees at a time in the existing pool.

"So the other thing we're doing is we are searching for grants and federal and state funding, but also private donations as well," he said.

The aquarium has devoted a donation page to the project on its website. The funds will go directly to the construction of more rehab pools, maintenance, food, medicine and supplies needed to run the rehabilitation center.

"This is an emergent and really critical need this species has," said Clearwater Marine Aquarium staff veterinarian Shelly Marquardi. "While they're listed as threatened at this point, a significant loss to the population really could put them back into that endangered category, something we're really, really trying to prevent. Each one of these individuals is integral to this population when you're dealing with such a small number. So we really want to play our role, we really want to help these animals and do our part in their long-term success."

Powell said the aquarium will continue to rescue, transport, tag and monitor manatees as well as act as a consultant on manatee issues with its international partners in the Caribbean

"We are simply adding rehabilitation capabilities," he said.

The aquarium hopes to complete the upgrades by December or January.

See related stories:

• Manatee Deaths Surge In Florida, Experts Say Starvation Possible
• Study Shows 1 Out Of 4 Manatees Have Scars From 10 Boat Strikes
• Baby Manatee's Life Saved By Clearwater Rescuers In Belize