Manatee zones enforcement in sw fl area....

[Forkin' Crazy]

Doug, When I was still down there we were told manatees (we called 'em sea cows back in the day) were imported because they eat the water hyacinth that was clogging up the canals in Port Charlotte. Oh well, maybe the Burmese Pythons will start feeding on 'em....

They are in the Caribbean too. I heard they were brought by the first settlers/traders from the Indian Ocean for a food source. Looking it up what we have is the "West Indian Manatee".

And then this:

Swimming
On average, manatees swim at about 5 to 8 kilometres per hour (3.1 to 5.0 mph). However, they have been known to swim at up to 30 kilometres per hour (19 mph) in short bursts.

Intelligence
Manatees are capable of understanding discrimination tasks, and show signs of complex associated learning and advanced long term memory.[6] They demonstrate complex discrimination and task-learning similar to dolphins and pinnipeds in acoustic and visual studies.[7]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manatee

Seems they would be smart enough to know to get out of the way?

[XstreamVking]

I grew up in sw fla. when I was a kid we never saw a manatee. (1960s) as the years went by we started seeing more and more of them(1970s-80s))The power plants have changed the migratory pattern they had. Now they don't migrate at all, they just go to the power plants in the winter and out to the bays and gulf in the summer. Now, they are eating all the sea grass and their population is out of proportion to the food supply. In the winter at the power plant, there is no food, so manatee huggers feed them. Breaking their own laws, further perpetuating the misery of these animals. If they would shut dn the warm water and not feed them, they would go back to the natural migration they had before mans (or should I say womans) interruption of the natural cycle. The large population spreads any sickness that one animal may get to the others. I say they are being loved to death......

[bretter]

Brett, even your LCB can't out run the plane and the motorola...... I just obey the rules and hope they get bored with all the compliant boaters and go some place to hassle other boaters.... It is getting harder all the time, just staying out of the laws way. New radar guns to check for 25 mph in the channel? Their really getting desperate to write tickets now.....Will your boat go as slow as 25mph and stay on plane?

sure it will. just draws more water like mr d said

[rankink]

Swimming On average, manatees swim at about 5 to 8 kilometres per hour (3.1 to 5.0 mph). However, they have been known to swim at up to 30 kilometres per hour (19 mph) in short bursts.

I can attest to the short bursts of speed. I have come upon them while running at high speed near a flat in the Florida Bay, and they have launched themselves out of the way very quickly. They can move very fast when they want to.

[71V153]

Doug, When I was still down there we were told manatees (we called 'em sea cows back in the day) were imported because they eat the water hyacinth that was clogging up the canals in Port Charlotte. Oh well, maybe the Burmese Pythons will start feeding on 'em....

One can only hope so ... Yo Bernie! How's it hangin'? First time I seen a sea cow was in Miami circa '68. Remember thinking what the heck is that!? Call it harsh but personally I'd like to see the Boca Grande Iguana method applied? Heh heh heh

I dunno but I doubt any good can come from the current situation. Which is only getting worse. We're fed lie upon lie about actual #s of Manatee, etc. Not a single one killed by a boat in Sarasota county last year btw yet we're rewarded with 6 more mi of "Manatee Zone"? Wtf!?

Granted the Manatee is just a poor dumb animal that likes warm water. (So am I ...) Our bad I s'pose for artificially warming the water it migrates through thereby encouraging it to stick around.

Not an Engineer but guess I just don't understand why the hot water runoff couldn't/shouldn't be cooled to within a couple degrees of the water it's emptied back into? Plumb some of that hot water to keep the 50 mil Americans living in poverty warm perhaps? Oh well maybe the Manatee will share their FPL customer powered hot tubs with the homeless this winter ...

[XstreamVking]

In Lee co. our local power plant spent upwards of 600,000 bucks to provide the sea cows with warm water. The plant was not planned to have a warm water discharge, and the manatee huggers went to court to restore it. So now they can have a warm winter home with empty food shelves. So, now they feed them romaine lettuce and such. These manatee are the water going version of a welfare recipient..And the manatee huggers are like the obama administration....If these animals went back to a normal life, there would be no need for slow zones, and no more easy revenue collected. Manatee huggers would have to find another animal to love to death....

[bretter]

Do they have any natural predators? It would be a shame if my pet killer whale got loose and ate them all.....

[Forkin' Crazy]

These manatee are the water going version of a welfare recipient..And the manatee huggers are like the obama administration....If these animals went back to a normal life, there would be no need for slow zones, and no more easy revenue collected. Manatee huggers would have to find another animal to love to death....

No doubt in my mind they are liberal Democrats.

[DavidW]

I live right on the bay here in Key largo and always have been in this same area. I have been around these animals all my life. I do like them but I agree that they are being used for an excuse to make more rules and hand out more fines. I do see many, many more these days than I did as a child in the same area. I have had fast boats all my life and considering how many there are in my area I have had pretty much no contact with them and never hit them with a fast boat. They tend to stay very close to the shoreline when they venture into the more heavy boat traffic areas. And when they here boats coming into the area they hug the shoreline even tighter. They do a pretty good job of avoiding boats contrary to what the manatee huggers would have us believe. I wonder how many of the ones they find dead with prop marks got them after they died, probably most of them. I really think it is rediculous to be heating pools for them and feeding them. It isn't even good for their survival like that. Kind of screws up the way natural selection is supposed keep their genepool strong...

[XstreamVking]

Bret, there have been orca sighted in the gulf quite a ways offshore over the last few years.... They prob would love a little manatee tail now and then... Forkin, the people that spearhead the manatee cause are mostly well educated, well funded women with no job and lots of time on their hands. And I think that makes them liberal democrats in every way... DavidW, your rite on all counts.....

[rankink]

I live right on the bay here in Key largo and always have been in this same area. I have been around these animals all my life. I do like them but I agree that they are being used for an excuse to make more rules and hand out more fines. I do see many, many more these days than I did as a child in the same area. I have had fast boats all my life and considering how many there are in my area I have had pretty much no contact with them and never hit them with a fast boat. They tend to stay very close to the shoreline when they venture into the more heavy boat traffic areas. And when they here boats coming into the area they hug the shoreline even tighter. They do a pretty good job of avoiding boats contrary to what the manatee huggers would have us believe. I wonder how many of the ones they find dead with prop marks got them after they died, probably most of them. I really think it is rediculous to be heating pools for them and feeding them. It isn't even good for their survival like that. Kind of screws up the way natural selection is supposed keep their genepool strong...

House on the bay around MM88 my whole life. Maybe seen a gradual increase since i was a child (36 yo), but in the Keys it seems they know how to stay out of the way. As you said, they hug the coast, mangroves and flats pretty well and hide out in canals a lot during the day. Definitely a scapegoat for the environmentalists and PETA types. Luckily, we do not have it as bad in the keys regarding zones as other places in FL.

[DavidW]

House on the bay around MM88 my whole life. Maybe seen a gradual increase since i was a child (36 yo), but in the Keys it seems they know how to stay out of the way. As you said, they hug the coast, mangroves and flats pretty well and hide out in canals a lot during the day. Definitely a scapegoat for the environmentalists and PETA types. Luckily, we do not have it as bad in the keys regarding zones as other places in FL.

I fear that the manatee zones are coming though. They are talking again about keeping boaters off the local sanbars because it kills seagrass?? It's like they want to stop power boating altogether. I don't think the tourist industry can survive off of kayakers alone.

[rankink]

I fear that the manatee zones are coming though. They are talking again about keeping boaters off the local sanbars because it kills seagrass?? It's like they want to stop power boating altogether. I don't think the tourist industry can survive off of kayakers alone.

They have been talking about the holiday isle sandbar for years now, and closing the everglades, and many other stupid recommendations. Of course, we have to fight them at every turn though. I think the Keys often forgets that its whole economy is built around tourists, and lots of those tourists have boats. Because, without a boat and access to the water in most of the keys there is not much else to do. Boats use gas, boaters stay at hotels, boaters go to restaurants and bars, etc.

Also, in the Keys we have a much wider open area rather than rivers and such that would corral the manatees more.

[XstreamVking]

We fought them in sw fl and only managed to delay the enevitable. The federal people came to our local meetings and faked listening to our concerns. They were just playing us, while we talked about it hurting our local economy, they just drew doodles on some scrap paper and blew us off. It was obvious that it was decided before any public imput was allowed what the outcome would be......I wish I could offer some encouragement to fight em, but have seen it firsthand..... Manatee huggers have the feds in their corner..It's all about control of boaters and revenue..

[oldskier]

One can only hope so ... Yo Bernie! How's it hangin'? First time I seen a sea cow was in Miami circa '68. Remember thinking what the heck is that!? Call it harsh but personally I'd like to see the Boca Grande Iguana method applied? Heh heh heh
...

Well that might be alright for iguana's, you can put 'em in a garbage bag. You would need a bigger bag for the sea cows....I really wanted to apply for the iguana exterminator job in Boca Grande...I wonder if they payed by the hour or by the head?