COME ON, PEOPLE NOW

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ONTHE ISLANDTHIS WEEK

Vol. 35, No. 38 Boca Grande, Florida Your Locally Owned Weekly Newspaper September 19, 2014

50

DAVID HAYES LEE MAJOR

County might be one step closer to Gilchrist decision?We would all like to think it could be so

n STAFF REPORT

Youth fishingtournamentthis Saturday

Lee County Parks & Recreationand the Boca Beacon will behosting the first youth fishing

tournament of the season on Satur-day, Sept. 20 from 9 to 11 a.m. at theBoca Grande Fishing Pier on thenorth end of the island.

The tournament is free for boys andgirls ages 15 and under. This is acatch-and-release tournament andbait will be provided by Boca GrandeMarina (no lures allowed).

Children must be supervised by aparent/guardian for this event. Regis-tration is not necessary just be atthe Boca Grande Fishing Pier readyto fish by 9 am.

There will be prizes and awards inmany categories, and each child isautomatically entered into a raffle towin even more prizes.

For more information, please con-tact Joe Wier at 964-2564.

Lee County has the dubious dis-tinction of having, for the cur-rent year through August 22,

more watercraft-related manateedeaths than any other county in thestate.

Thats according to a report re-leased by the Florida Fish and WildlifeConservation Commission MarineMammal Pathobiology Laboratory.

Lee County had 13 manatee deathscaused by watercraft. The countieswith the nearest number of similarlycaused mortalities were Charlotte, Cit-rus and Miami-Dade, all of which hadfour.

The report is divided into eight cate-gories (cause of death) including coldstress, natural, perinatal and undeter-mined. Brevard led the state in total,by far, with 71, largely due to 23 peri-natal deaths and 38 undetermineddeaths.

Lee had 42, in total, and Charlottehad 10.

Of the states total, 271 across the33 counties covered by the report, Leeand Charlotte Counties were host tonearly 20 percent of watercraft-relatedmanatee deaths, and Lee Countyalone accounted for nearly 15 percent.

According to a representative of theFish and Wildlife Research Institute,the FWCs research arm, those num-bers are only really unusual in the

sense that Brevard normally has muchhigher numbers.

(Lee and Charlotte Counties hav-ing such a disproportionate number ofwatercraft-related manatee deaths) isnot unusual, he said in an email. Inaddition to Lee County, BrevardCounty usually has a higher number compared to the rest of the state,but it is lower this year (for unknownreason).

The numbers over the last five years(for the same period the beginningof the year through August 22), pro-vided by the FWRI, bear that out. Ofthe 295 total WC-related deaths overthose five periods, Lee and Charlottetogether were host to 25 percent ofthem Lee with 19 percent and Char-lotte with 6 percent.

The FWRI representative said thehigh numbers could be the result of acombination of factors.

If these are popular waterways for

Manatee-watercraft collisions highest in state in Lee County,is the law enforcement response proportional?

It can be a good sign when no onewants your job. Two seats wentuncontested on the Gasparilla Is-

land Bridge Authoritys board this year.Seats two and four, currently held byDavid Hayes, Chairman, and Lee

Major, will be occupied by their incum-bents for another four years.

The appointment will be automatic,because no other hats were throwninto the ring.

Executive Director Kathy Banson-

Two GIBAboard seats tobe filled automatically

n BY JACK SHORT

See MANATEE on PAGE 11

n BY JACK SHORT

See GIBA on PAGE 12

Could we be one step closer toresolving the Gilchrist parkingsituation? We know, weve said

it before. But this time ... maybe?In an email dated September 16

and sent to county commissionersand other Lee County administrators,Assistant County Manager DouglasMeurer addressed the key points ofdiscussion about Gilchrist, and saidthat a majority of stakeholders in theproject approved. County commis-

n BY MARCY SHORTUSE

n The newest plan proposed by the county leaves places to pull-in park, but utilizes dif-ferent landscaping techniques as well.See GILCHRIST on PAGE 18

BOCA BEACON - September 19, 2014 Page 11

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manatees, it puts more manatees inthe area and, in combination with thepopularity of boating in this region, itmay add up to a higher risk of mana-tee-vessel collisions, he said.

He added that it is possible mana-tees are being injured elsewhere andbeing reported in high-count areas likeLee County, since the deaths are re-ported as taking place in the countieswhere the animals are discovered.

Additionally, he said, there is thepossibility that carcasses are betterreported due to higher traffic in LeeCounty waters.

... carcasses do not always matchup with the location where the mana-tee was hit, he said. A proportion ofall watercraft-related mortalities (sic) ischronic, so a manatee may get injuredin another part of the state, swimaround with the injury for months orsometimes even years, and ultimatelysuccumb to its chronic trauma in a dif-ferent county from where the collisionhappened.

He said that Lee county is a populardestination for manatees all year long,but admitted that other counties are aswell.

Scott Calleson, a biologist for FWCFisheries and Wildlife, said LeeCounty is in many respects a year-round heavy use area, with less sea-sonal fluctuation than nearby countiessuch as Hillsborough, which also at-tracts manatees to sites such as theApollo Beach power plant, where theanimals take advantage of warmwater discharge during periods of lowwater temperature. Water that dipsbelow a certain temperature cancause cold stress and even mortality.

Lee Countys lack of fluctuation,Calleson said, is certainly a factor inboat strikes.

It is difficult to gauge the proportion-ality of law enforcement efforts acrosscounties for several reasons, not theleast of which is that multiple agenciesoften contribute to marine regulationenforcement. Lee County relies on the

efforts of their sheriffs department, theFWC and other agencies included inthe Lee County Marine Law Enforce-ment Task Force, which includes theCape Coral Police Department.

Comparing data on enforcement ac-tion to another high-mortality countysuch as Brevard, for example, is diffi-cult. They rely on local law enforce-ment and the FWC but, also,according to Matt Culver, Boating andWaterways Program Coordinator forBrevard County, occasional help fromfederal agencies. On holidays, hesaid, the United States Fish andWildlife Service will sweep and patrolcertain areas.

Brevard and Lee Counties wereboth identified, as part of thestatewide manatee management plan,as key counties with high mortalitiesthat were, as a result, directed to de-velop their own management plans.

In gauging the scope of law enforce-ment action, there is also the problemof relative size of waterways in eachcounty, and whether or not those wa-terways are usable to manatees andthus likely to attract them.

It is also necessary to determine ifthose waterways are usable toboaters, and also how the layout of in-ternal water systems may affect en-

forcement. According to a Manatee Protection

Plan developed by Brevard county,Brevard has 281 square miles of wa-terways. Calleson estimated that Leehas 240 square miles. But Callesoncautioned that, to a manatee, not allwater is equal.

In addition to factors such as sub-merged aquatic vegetation, freshwater sources and warm water aggre-gation sites, all of which are identifiedas crucial to manatee survival by theFWCs Florida Manatee ManagementPlan, there are simple conditionssuch as the depth of the water thatmay affect manatees presence in agiven area.

Calleson said that the vast majorityof Lees 240 square miles is usable tomanatees and, while HillsboroughCounty may have close to that num-ber, not all of the water is shallowenough or suitable enough to be use-ful to manatees. Charlotte County, heestimated, has only half as muchwater as Lee, though much of it is har-bor.

Like many counties, Lee County hasspeed restriction zones as part ofstate and federal regulations.

Calleson said about 30 percent ofLee Countys inshore water is covered

by manatee protection zones. He esti-mated about 15 percent of CharlotteCountys inshore water was similarlyprotected.

The total water area doesnt tell thewhole story, said Calleson.

Protection is the result of zones cre-ated by federal and state mandates.

When the numbers and depths aretaken into account, he said, the differ-ences are not quite as striking.

Still, data provided by FWCs lawenforcement division shows that, overthe same period that Lee Countyracked up 13 watercraft-related mor-talities, Brevards FWC officers per-formed 351 enforcement actionsrelated to watercraft. Those actions in-cluded everything from reckless oper-ation and BUIs to improper gear.

During the same period, Lee CountyFWC officers performed 224 enforce-ment actions of the same type, 64 per-cent of their counterparts in Brevard.

It is possible that local law enforce-ment balances out the disparity, butthe Beacon was not able to obtain thatdata by press time.

Of course, the relevance of thosenumbers also depends on the numberof boaters, the water accessible to

ManateesFrom PAGE 1

See MANATEES on PAGE 16

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them, and manatee speed zones. There are two problems areas in

Lee County, according to their MMP.According to that 2004 report, theCaloosahatchee River and Estero Bayhave 47.2 percent and 22.8 percent ofall Lee County watercraft deaths re-spectively.

But, according to Dr. John Reynoldsof Mote Marine Laboratories, LeeCounty has 44,000 registered boatsand Brevard has 33,000. In addition,he suggested Brevard County has alarge amount of restricted waterways,because of NASAs presence there,that arent available to boaters.

Manatees are protected by severallaws.

According to the FMMP, in additionto the Florida Manatee Sanctuary Act,the federal Marine Mammal ProtectionAct (16 U.S.C. 1361-1421), the fed-eral Endangered Species Act (16U.S.C. 1531-1544) and the FloridaEndangered and Threatened SpeciesAct (372.072, F.S.) also play impor-tant roles in the protection of theFlorida manatee.

Calleson estimates that thestatewide management plan laid out inthe FMMP will be revisited and sys-tematically reviewed periodically every 15 years approximately. He saidLee County last looked at manateezones in areas near the Caloosa-hatchee River in the 1980s, and atareas in western Lee County around2000. They were forced to revisit thesubject in 2005 because of litigation,which spurred a reevaluation, butCalleson said the zones didnt changeall that much.

He said pressure comes from bothsides. Some people think that nothing

should be done at all and somethink the entire state should be a no-wake zone for the manatees benefit.

The Florida Manatee Sanctuary Act,enacted in 1978, declares the entireState of Florida a manatee refugeand sanctuary, according to theFMMP. None of that is contingentupon the manatees status as either astate or a federally listed species,which has come into question againrecently.

Reynolds stressed that research sci-entists and organizations like Mote areinterested primarily in data. What getsdone with that data is up to legislatorspeople at the capitol.

In reference to recent efforts to de-list manatees altogether (they are cur-rently listed as threatened), Reynolds

said he doesnt think that would beprudent.

One of the critical things about list-ing status is that we identify all thethreats to a population, he said.

There are too many deaths forwhich no cause has been identified tosay that all threats to manatees havebeen identified, according toReynolds.

He also stressed the importance ofa healthy manatee population be-cause of its status as a flagshipspecies, he said, which is an animal orplant whose success as a populationis both an indication of and a causefor the success of components of itsecosystem.

For example, he said, manatees arecrucial for the health of sea grasses,

on which groups like recreational fish-ermen depend for healthy and biologi-cally diverse fisheries and nurseries.

As for the known causes of mana-tee mortality, the 2004 FMMP states,The largest known cause of human-related manatee mortality in Florida iswatercraft collision.

Moreover, according to bothReynolds and the FMMP, the South-west Region, containing Lee but notBrevard County, is a problem area formanatee survival. It is the only region,out of four, that has not seen a posi-tive population change in recent his-tory.

Evidence suggests that estimatesof adult survival in this unit (Langtimmet al. 2004) are lower than those of allother management units, probablydue to the combined effects of chronichuman-related (watercraft) mortalityand episodic mortality events causedby red tide, according to the FMMP.

Reynolds corroborated. It is still aproblem area, he said, but he cau-tioned that Lee County has also beena focal point of several natural mortal-ity events such as red tide blooms.The long term effects of repeated ex-posure to those as well as cold stressevents are not known, and it may bethat they effect reproduction or evensurvival in other ways, such asthrough impairment.

He has been flying and conductingaerial surveys for Florida Power andLight Company for 35 years. Over thatperiod, he provided data to variouslaw enforcement agencies includingthe FWC.

The way to accomplish effectivepreservation, he said, is for peoplefrom diverse viewpoints to communi-cate with one another in good faith.

ManateesFrom PAGE 11

manatee longmanatee long 2manatee long 3