Boaters traveling through and around Virginia Key this Fourth of July weekend are being asked to be especially careful of the endangered manatee, which uses the surrounding waters for feeding, resting, mating, traveling and calving.
Virginia Key is located within the Biscayne Bay Aquatic Preserve, which shares the bay with Biscayne National Park, where manatees frequent. And the Virginia Key marinas are across from the Bill Sadowski Critical Wildlife Area (CWA), a 700-acre state-designated refuge with “extraordinary habitat values” that contains the island’s largest remaining portion of unaltered mangrove forest and largest amount of unaltered, submerged land, is an important undisturbed spawning area for many species of fish and invertebrates.
The Save the Manatee Club is asking boaters to abide by posted speed limits, to slow down in shallow areas where manatees like to feed and rest and to travel through deep water channels whenever possible in the interest of saving the endangered species.
Other tips range from wearing polarized sunglasses to reduce glare and see below the water’s surface to limiting high-speed watersports (jet-skiing, water-skiing) to landlocked lakes or waters well offshore. Ideally, boaters should remain a safe distance away - at least 50 feet - while operating a boat or personal watercraft. Cut your motor if you want to observe a manatee, the club suggests.
Last year, a record 97 manatees were killed by boat strikes, according to the club. But the population also succumbed to the cold winter, with more than 500 manatees dying in the first six months of the year.
If you see an injured, dead or orphaned manatee, call the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission at 1-888-404-3922 or #FWC or *FWC on your cellphone, or use VHF Channel 16 on your marine radio.
Resources:
http://www.savethemanatee.org/boatertips.htm
http://www.dep.state.fl.us/coastal/sites/biscayne/
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