Treasure Coast Newspapers
Rep. Brian Mast, R-Fla., wants to increase federal funding to local governments and nonprofits for rescue and rehabilitation of sick and injured marine mammals, a response to the startling death rate of manatees in Florida this year.
Mast has introduced the Marine Mammal Research and Response Act. Democrat Stephanie Murphy, who represents potions of the Orlando area, is its cosponsor. The legislation could bring $7 million a year to help protect and study the deaths of marine mammals.
More Florida manatees have died in the first three months of 2021 than in all of 2020, most of them in the Indian River Lagoon s stretch through Brevard County, according to Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission data available Wednesday. The threshold was hit in mid-April, with 649 manatee deaths in just over three months.
Reward increased to help find person who scraped âTRUMPâ on manatee
By FOX 35 News Staff
PublishedÂ
Photo courtesy: Hailey Warrington
CITRUS COUNTY, Fla. - An additional $5,000 is being offered for information leading to whoever scraped the word ‘TRUMP’ on a manatee’s back earlier this year.
The increase from the Animal Legal Defense Fund brings the reward total to $8,000. It’s troubling that someone has interfered with a threatened species and there are laws in place to prevent this type of incident. We hope the additional reward will reinvigorate the case and a witness will come forward, says Animal Legal Defense Fund Executive Director Stephen Wells. We commend the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission for their continued attention to this case and we’re hopeful that the local community will come forward with any information they have regarding this crime.
Reward increased to help find suspect who scraped Trump on manatee: report foxnews.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from foxnews.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
What you are looking at, readers, is trouble. Big trouble for the vast, complex and magically diverse system known as the Indian River Lagoon. Because this is not an isolated scene. As reported last week by The News-Journal’s Abigail Brashear, 46,000 acres of seagrass have disappeared throughout the lagoon system. That’s 58 percent of the seagrass that was in the lagoon in 2009.
And manatees are dying. Dying, with nothing in their stomachs, because there is nothing for them to eat. In December, January and February, more than 400 manatees died. By comparison, 405 died in all of 2015.
The seagrass dies and the manatees die, along with the crabs, the fish, the shrimp that die or are never born. The birds that would have eaten them. The ripples of death spread ever outward. At some point, it will be the lagoon itself that dies.
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A manatee was recently discovered in Florida with the word “Trump” apparently etched into its back. The grotesque assault on the wild aquatic being by persons as yet unknown drew repulsion and outrage from the public and officials.
Coming in the final days of his presidency, the obscene act provided an apt illustration of Donald Trump’s impact on the natural world while in office. Indeed, the Trump administration wasted no time in its finals days making sure that toxic legacy is etched in stone.