habitat Archives -

Wednesday, March 31, is National Manatee Appreciation Day, aimed at bringing the world’s attention to an herbivore with no known natural enemies – in the water, at least.

Also known as sea cows, manatees are a vulnerable species due to their contact with humans. Boating and pollution are their greatest threats.

Florida, contrarian that it is, designated November Manatee Awareness Month. But we’re going to put that aside because, hey, it’s National Manatee Appreciation Day and our publisher made us.

And, besides, Manatee Lagoon, north of Palm Beach, held its ManateeFest at the beginning of February, a five-day, free, and virtual manateeorama. So, technically they did it first.

“I don’t care who did it first. One more time and I’m turning this car around.”

As you all know, of course, manatees are of the scientific order, Sirenia, of which the well-known dugong is also a member. The two main differences between them are that dugongs are smaller than manatees and have a sillier name.

If you insist on going into more detail, any third grader can tell you that manatees have horizontal, paddle-shaped tails with only one lobe to move up and down when the animal swims. Dugongs, on the other hand, have a fluked tail, meaning it is made up of two separate lobes joined together in the middle.

Manatees also are distantly related to elephants, and I mean distantly. There may be some common DNA, chromosomes, genes, or whatever between the two species, but manatees are a distant enough cousin to the elephant that they’re not being invited to the annual pachyderm family picnic anymore.

The last time that happened one of the manatees embarrassed himself at the punch bowl. You can guess the rest.

I have my own theory about the whole elephant-manatee connection. Please pay attention. It will be on the test.

Millions of years ago, an elephant, or mammoth, or mastodon, or whatever, enjoyed being in the water, like modern-day elephants do. He or she gradually started walking out to deeper and deeper water and started using its trunk as a breathing tube.

As time evolved, it learned to hold its breath longer, its trunk got progressively shorter, and its legs shriveled up into flippers. Voila, the manatee!

But seriously, despite manatees having no natural enemies, except perhaps crocodiles preying on their young, the species is in danger.

According to a 2012 article on Web Ecology the main causes of death “are human-related issues, such as habitat destruction and human objects.”

“Their slow-moving, curious nature has led to violent collisions with propeller-driven boats and ships. Some manatees have been found with over 50 scars on them from propeller blades.”

“The best way to protect manatees is for the public to learn about their plight and how protecting them is in all our best interests if we care about healthy aquatic ecosystems,” says Patrick Rose, Executive Director of Save the Manatee Club.

“Whether passively observing the beauty of our waterways or actively engaged in water-related activities such as boating, fishing, or diving, we should understand our role as responsible stewards of manatees and their habitat and how we can help protect those things we hold dear.”

Manatee Lagoon (www.visitmanateelagoon.com) in Riviera Beach is a great place to see manatees. The lagoon is closed now because of the pandemic, but you can still access its live manatee cam at www.visitmanateelagoon.com/manatee-cam.

As the community of Parkland continues to urbanize, it can be easy to forget how close the wild, thriving world of nature is — until those plants or animals end up dominating your backyard.

Because of our close proximity to the Everglades, Parkland’s wildlife system is interconnected with the “river of grass” and all of its ecological complexity. In recent years, residents and scientists have noticed and studied the lingering effects that non-native plants and animals have on the delicate balance of the food chain here in South Florida.

When a non-native plant or animal is introduced to an ecosystem, it often does not have any natural predators in the area. This may lead the species to become invasive, meaning it will cause ecological harm due to its rapid ability to reproduce. The Burmese python is one of the most notorious interlopers to our area, although not by its own choosing.

History.com reports that pythons, native to Southeast Asia, were first brought to the United States as exotic pets. “When the exotic pet trade boomed in the 1980s, Miami became host to thousands of such snakes,” the website reports.

“Because pythons can grow to such unmanageable sizes, it was inevitable that some irresponsible owners would release the snakes into the wild. But most experts believe the pythons established a reproducing population in the Everglades sometime after Hurricane Andrew—a category 5 storm that devastated the state in August 1992.

“It was during that storm that a python breeding facility was destroyed, releasing countless snakes into the nearby swamps.” History.com asserts.

The consequences of these human mistakes are alarmingly clear. As pythons continue to exist near the top of the food chain, the populations of small, warm- blooded animals have become noticeably absent. This disruption to the balance of animal populations is worrying because it can have disastrous effects on even more species if the pythons are left to wreak havoc.

What’s more, researchers recently discovered that Burmese pythons are responsible for spreading a parasite known as “tongue worm” to other native Floridian species of snakes.

The Palm Beach Post reports that “While pythons have developed defense mechanisms to keep the parasite in check, Florida snakes are naïve to the intruders’ methods with a biology unequipped to defend against them.”

As time has revealed that invasive species are capable of causing chaos which trickles down into many different aspects of the ecosystem, the call to eradicate and monitor the introduction of non- native species grows stronger across the media. However, what most residents aren’t aware of is the fact that non-native animals have also been used in a number of beneficial ways here in South Florida.

One non-native species that was introduced, ironically, to biologically combat another dangerous invasive species is the thrip bug. Thrip bugs, which are native to Brazil, can be used as a biological control to feed on the Brazilian pepper tree, which has invaded over 700 thousand acres of Florida and crowds out native hammocks, pinelands, and mangrove forests.

According to CBS Miami, officials specifically chose thrip bugs for this task because they were proven to not be of harm to Florida’s natural ecosystem, and are successful at weakening the invasive tree species.

What’s more interesting about this phenomenon is that scholars like Carey Minteer (assistant professor of entomology at the University of Florida), who spoke to Local 10 News, claim that they have “a very long and successful record of using biological controls in Florida,” which may come as a surprise to some who perhaps made up their mind that non-native species should never be introduced to a new habitat because of creatures like the python.

Researchers tend to argue that as long as the biological control is experimentally tested and proven not to be an invasive threat to its new environment, then the introduction of a non-native species is actually quite beneficial. Oxitec, a British biotechnology company, was just approved by the Florida department of agriculture and consumer services to release a swarm of genetically modified mosquitoes across the Florida keys in the fight against disease carrying mosquitoes, even with the outcry of over 200,000 petition signers that claim Oxitec has not done enough research on the effects the mosquitoes may have on such a fragile ecosystem.

“The distinction between native and non-native species does not disappear over time,” smithsonianmag.com reports.

At least two of Florida’s main agricultural products, for example, citrus and sugar cane, are and always will be non-native. Sugar cane was introduced in the 1760s and citrus between 1513 and 1565.

And since there is no time limit, there’s at least one more non-native and arguably invasive species that has had an overwhelming
impact on Florida: Us.

By Madison Smith

Tag: habitat

Almost time to appreciate the manatee

Non-native species in South Florida: Harmful, or helpful?