In December we posted about an emergency feeding program for starving Florida manatees to help them survive the winter. The sea grass that manatees rely on for food has been decimated by pollution, killed off by algae blooms fueled largely by human waste and fertilizer runoff from lawns and farms. As more people moved to the region and wastewater infrastructure aged, more toxins leaked into the waterways.
Over the winter, state and federal wildlife officials fed manatees in the Indian River Lagoon ten tons of romaine lettuce to supplement their dwindling food supply.
The New York Times reports that the feeding experiment, funded by $116,000 in public donations, was a gamble. Between Jan. 1 and April 1, the number of confirmed deaths fell to 479, down from 612 in 2021. In 2020, that figure was 205.