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April 14, 2021
Three months into 2021, 613 Florida manatees are dead – more than triple the yearly mortality averaged over the past five years.
Federal regulations improved manatees’ status from “endangered” to “threatened” back in 2017, but was this move premature?
Though the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission has not examined many of the dead mammals, the manatees currently seem to be starving.
These aquatic herbivores referred to as “sea cows” graze upon seagrasses and other underwater flora for up to eight hours daily. Through increased nutrient loads of nitrogen and phosphorous, algal blooms in the Indian River Lagoon block sunlight and cause such manatee-supporting vegetation to die.
April 14, 2021
Sundry Photography/iStock
(NEW YORK) A man has been sentenced to three months in federal prison after shooting an elephant seal in the head with a handgun while it rested peacefully on a California beach.
The incident originally occurred on Sept. 28, 2019, when 30-year-old Jordan Gerbich from Santa Maria, California drove to an elephant seal viewing area near the Piedras Blancas Marine Reserve and Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary with a .45 caliber pistol and a flashlight.
Gerbich subsequently approached one of the elephant seals as the animal was resting on the beach and killed it by shooting it directly in the head with a single gunshot, according to a statement from the United States Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California.
While its numbers are still recovering after reaching the brink of extinction, an elephant seal resting on a beach in California was fatally shot by a man, who is now sentenced to three months in prison on Monday, prosecutors said.
The man was identified as Jordan Gerbich, 30, who now lives in Utah. Gerbich shot the elephant seal in the head using a handgun on Sept. 28, 2019, near San Simeon on California s central coast.
When asked for comment on Tuesday night, NBC News said the federal public defender of Gerbich did not respond to the request.
However, the attorney earlier said in a court document he submitted before the sentencing that the killing was so unusual and troubling that even Gerbich was shocked and knew it was wrong.