Do NOT Weaken Manatees' Endangered Species Status
Action Alert from All-Creatures.org

FROM

Endangered Species Coalition
August 2014

For more about manatees, visit Save the Manatee Club.

ACTION

The USFWS (U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service) is considering lowering the protections that manatees receive from "Endangered" to "Threatened" in response to a petition from special interests.

As few as 5,000 manatees remain and rely on these protections. This "downlisting" could result in more manatee deaths from their primary killer - recreational boat strikes.

Please tell the USFWS to keep existing protections in place.

Sign an online petition here

And/or better yet, make direct contact:

Sally Jewell
Secretary of the Interior
Department of the Interior
1849 C Street N.W.
Washington DC 20240
phone (202) 208-3100
fax (202) 208-6950
[email protected] 

INFORMATION / TALKING POINTS

The government should not bow to pressure from special interest groups who would like to weaken protections for manatees. They are still in danger from loss of habitat and deadly red tides that strike each year. The death toll isn't dropping and they need stronger protections.

The Florida manatee continues to face numerous severe threats, and many recovery actions, such as setting minimum flows and levels for warm water springs and revising manatee critical habitat, remain unfinished. These vital recovery actions need to be completed before the Service should consider changing the listing status of the manatee.

The manatee was not listed due to its population size but due to human-caused threats it faced at the time, including loss of habitat and collisions with boats, threats which remain today and are likely to worsen in the future.

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Thank you for everything you do for animals!

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