When you think of Florida, theme parks, space shuttles and resort-lined beaches may first spring to mind. However, far away from these scenes, the south-eastern part of the state is distinctly characterised by its diverse and complex ecosystems of extensive coastline, wetlands, forests, and unique geological features that are home to Florida’s manatees.

Large, grey, and looking much like a potato, the Florida manatee is one of two subspecies of the West Indian manatee. These docile and gentle creatures are aquatic mammals that are relatively solitary and often travel alone or in small herds. The subspecies spends the cold winter months in the refuge of Florida’s warm water environments in the state’s interior waterways. Every winter, thousands of manatees gather in the constant 22 degrees Celsius water of the Florida springs and south Florida river environments, while avoiding the dropping ocean temperatures.

They sleep at least 12 hours a day in these shallow waters and spend a majority of their waking hours using their prehensile lips and sensory whiskers to forage for vegetation on the bottom of the sea or on riverbeds. Here, they feed on large quantities of aquatic vegetation, such as seagrass; fully grown adults can consume over 45 kilogrammes a day. But with depleting food sources, manatees are being forced to venture into more precarious waters where they risk cold water exposure and collisions with boats. Manatees are currently designated under the Endangered Species Act as threatened, but in the last few years there has been growing support to reclassify them as endangered.

Habitat loss, food scarcity, cold stress, and boat strikes have recently become an all-too-common occurrence for Florida’s manatee population, resulting in a significant and alarming die-off of the population. 2021 showed particularly distressing numbers with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) recording a total of 1,101 manatee mortalities over the year – a staggering 10% of their total population. When compared to the recorded 637 mortalities of the previous year and the five-year average of 741, these startling numbers beg for restorative reconciliation. The main cause of death among the necropsied carcasses in the first three and coldest months of the year was attributed to malnutrition, showcasing how the increasing reduction of seagrass and food sources along the eastern coast of Florida, paired with low temperatures, compromises the already malnutritioned manatees. Fortunately, the trend has begun to level off, with 800 mortalities in 2022 and around 330 recorded in 2023. Although the numbers have dropped back closer to the five-year average, data shows that manatee mortality rates have been on the rise for over a decade.