Gov. DeSantis visits Volusia County to tout water quality and manatee programs
FWC photos of emaciated manatee carcasses by Dr. Dave Rotstein.
During a visit to Blue Spring State Park, west of Orange City, Florida on February 6, 2024, Governor Ron DeSantis spoke about State funding set aside to improve water quality and manatee habitats, and provide protection for manatees.
Since 2019, Florida has approved more than $50 million for manatee protection, expanding and enhancing manatee rescue and rehabilitation efforts, and providing habitat restoration for areas where manatees are highly concentrated, along with $325 million to restore Florida’s springs, which serve as a manatee habitat when the mammals seek warmer waters during winter.
In 2023, Florida manatees had the lowest mortality rate since 2017, according to the FWC. In early February 2024, Blue Spring State Park saw a record 932 manatees seeking warm waters in its spring, beating its New Year’s Day number of 736 manatees.
Because of these measures, along with the manatee rescue and rehabilitation efforts of the FWC, Florida's manatee population is strengthening, according to Gov. DeSantis
Since 2019, more than $1.8 billion has been approved for water quality improvement projects across the state, which includes more than $163 million dedicated to projects in the Indian River Lagoon on the east coast of Florida, which is home to thousands of manatees. Florida’s Future Budget Proposal calls for more than $330 million to continue targeted water quality improvements, which includes $100 million for a second year to continue the Indian River Lagoon protection program, and $9.5 million to continue Florida’s manatee protection programs.
In December 2020, an crisis called an Unusual Mortality Event (UME) of manatees began in the Indian River Lagoon and all along the eastern (Atlantic Ocean) coast of Florida, when manatees began starving, due to lack of forage, or plant material. The lack of forage, coupled with colder temperatures during the winter, added additional health stressors to manatees already compromised by chronic malnutrition (see above photos). Manatees in Florida feed on more than 60 species of plants, which include turtle grass, manatee grass, shoal grass, mangrove leaves, various algae, water hyacinth, acorns, and hydrilla.