TALLAHASSEE – As of March 19, biologists with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission’s (FWC) Fish and Wildlife Research Institute (FWRI) have documented 431 manatee carcasses in state waters so far in 2010. This preliminary data indicates that in just three months, the number of manatee deaths has exceeded the highest number on record for an entire calendar year, which was 429 in 2009. The cause of death for the majority of these animals is cold stress.
The “cold-stress” category accounts for 222 documented manatee carcasses; however, it is likely the cold temperatures also contributed to many of the 108 deaths in the “undetermined” category and the 64 deaths in the “unrecovered” category.
