Wednesday January 22, 2025
Oceanographic —
A decision from the US Fish and Wildlife Service last week over the conservation status of both the Florida and the Antillean manatee of Puerto Rico has left the manatee conservation community with mixed emotions, with one subspecies now approved for an increased ‘endangered’ status and the other denied it.
Responding to a petition submitted by Harvard Law School’s Animal Law & Policy Clinic on behalf of the Centre for Biological Diversity and a consortium of Florida-based conservation groups, the federal service decided last week to deny the Florida manatee greater ‘Endangered Species Act’ protections, drawing disappointment from those that have been campaigning for an up-ticked status since 2022.
The consortium – which includes Save the Manatee Club, Miami Waterkeeper, and Frank S. Gonzalez Garcia – wanted to see protections for the Florida manatee increased from its current ‘threatened’ status to ‘endangered’.
Despite this Service’s decision not to go ahead with the call, it was, however, a privilege afforded to the closely-related and equally-threatened Antillean manatee.