Fort Pierce - Wednesday May 25, 2022: Wildlife official say there is little chance that sea grass growth in the Indian River will return to the levels necessary to keep the lagoon's manatees alive next winter and they're planning for the possibility of resuming the temporary feeding program that just ended in March, however they also cited several glimmers of hope for the health of the Lagoon during a conference call with reports last week.
"As you all know the Indian River Lagoon isn't going to re-grow its sea grass beds over the summer in any fashion that's going to support the manatee when they return back to those waters this fall," said John Wallace, the Incident Commander for U.S. Fish and Wildlife's Joint Unified Command. Wallace said both U.S. Fish and Wildlife, and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC), will spend the summer months evaluating the outcome of the temporary manatee feeding program that ended in March.
"We are still doing a lot of planning and getting ready for next winter and fall. Depending on what the conditions are this summer, " said Wallace, "we could see a similar response, a similar event to this past winter."
As of May 20th 559 manatees had died around the state since the start of 2022, 31 of them after being struck by a boat, 122 from natural causes, most of the others from starvation because of the lack of sea grass, and the vast majority of them died in the Indian River Lagoon. However the number of manatee deaths this year has fallen. Nearly 200 fewer manatees have died in 2022 compared to the same period last year.
Ron Mezich, FWC's Provisioning Branch Chief for the Joint Unified Command, says there are some hopeful signs. "What we're hearing is that there is still good coverage of macro alleges. That's good, algae uses nutrients, so anything that's using nutrients, other than algae blooms, is a good thing for the lagoon and water clarity and water quality."
In addition Mezich said there are signs of some sea grass re-growth. "We are getting some reports of some sea grass growing in multiple areas. It is very small, and it is not very dense, but I would say that's a positive thing and we'll see if that continues throughout the growing season."
However he cautions one huge algae bloom could set everything back again. "I don't want to read too much into it at this point because they're just observation, but we continue to hope that algae blooms do not occur and water clarity stays good because that will benefit sea grasses throughout the growing season."