Take Action for Manatees!

Please Don't Downlist Manatees!
USFWS Recommends Status Change from
“Endangered” to “Threatened”

The Issue:
Manatees are facing their biggest threat ever. The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS), after conducting a 5-year review of the manatee’s federal imperiled status, has recommended the manatee for downlisting from “endangered” to “threatened.”

Why, you ask, aren’t we celebrating the news we have fought for so many years to hear? Because these actions are politically driven. With the price of coastal land skyrocketing, powerful groups like the homebuilder’s association and the marine industries have been lobbying for a long time to get the manatee’s imperiled status changed in order to gut protective regulations and increase their profit margins. This is what it’s always been about, no matter how they or the government wildlife agencies try to portray it.

What You Can Do:

Please take action for manatees! By adding your information below, you will send the following online letter to Dirk Kempthorne, U.S. Secretary of the Interior; H. Dale Hall, Director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; and Florida Governor Charlie Crist, to let them know you strongly oppose the manatee’s downlisting at this time.

Please also consider making a donation to help us take whatever actions are necessary, including legal action, to ensure that manatees are protected to the full extent of the law. Please be as generous as possible so we can have the resources to act decisively.

Thank you for your help and support!

May 25, 2013

Subject:
Please Don't Downlist Manatees

Dear Secretary Kempthorne, Director Hall, and Governor Crist:

It is sheer folly to reclassify manatees now when record numbers are dying, when there are a growing number of boats using Florida's already dangerous waters, and when rampant coastal development is proceeding at break-neck speed. Reclassification at this time will greatly hamper our chances of securing the manatee's future in the face of so many growing threats.

By changing the very goal of the Endangered Species Act from one of species recovery to simply avoiding species extinction, you may have doomed America's most at-risk species. In the manatee's case, "avoiding extinction" means the population can be projected to shrink drastically and still be considered for complete removal (delisting) from the federal endangered species list in just three years.

This is outrageous and will dramatically increase the manatee's potential for future extinction.

The goal of special interest groups, like the homebuilders association and the marine industries, is to gut the regulations that protect manatees and their aquatic habitat. With the price of coastal land skyrocketing, these regulations are standing in the way of the huge profits to be made by developing what's left of Florida's coastline. This is what their push to have the manatee reclassified has always been about.

I am urging you not to downlist manatees until manatee deaths from boat strikes and the destruction of the manatee's habitat from rampant, unplanned growth are brought under control, and until such time as we have counteracted growth's negative cumulative effects on our aquatic ecosystems.

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