Manatees are not big crowd-pleasers, but they are Florida’s biggest & most unique native mammal ORLANDO, Florida––Some of the best news for manatees in decades came separately, quietly, almost simultaneously in mid-March 2025 from the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission and from SeaWorld Orlando. The Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission issued an official […]
Trump cabinet nominees Doug Burgum & Kristi Noem records on animals
Burgum favors fossil fuels, factory farming, & wild horses; Noem shot her dog, a goat, & three horses, then bragged about it in a book WASHINGTON D.C.––Whatever people in North and South Dakota think about animals on public lands, and human use of public lands, is very likely to be public policy during the second […]
Big fish, little fish, red fish, blue fish: hard times for aquariums
Hurricane damage, Animal Welfare Act fines, & bad publicity drive out even “Codfather” Vince Covino SARASOTA, Florida; MYSTIC, Connecticut; NIAGARA, Ontario––The Mote Marine Laboratory & Aquarium in Sarasota, Florida is plugging ahead with a $130 million upgrade and expansion of facilities scheduled to open before the site reaches 70 years of age in early 2025. […]
Nitrogen kills Florida sawfish––& manatees––but no one wants to say so
Turfgrass industry lobbying in 2023 put nitrogen runoff regulation on hold TAMPA, Florida––The real mystery of the whirling sawfish found in shallow Florida waters since November 2023 may be not what afflicts the fish, but rather why almost no one investigating the fish deaths is talking about gas bubble disease and nitrogen. Gas bubble […]
Jimmy Buffett, 76, was there when needed for dolphins & manatees
Jimmy Buffett fans calling themselves “Parrotheads” reinforced the dolphin & manatee causes SAG HARBOR, New York––James William Buffett, 76, born on Christmas Day 1946, known to the world as entertainer and entrepreneur Jimmy Buffett, died on September 1, 2023, at his home in Sag Harbor, New York, from complications of Merkel-cell carcinoma, a rare and aggressive skin […]
Starving Florida manatees need more than just lettuce for Christmas
Feeding the manatees helps. Not feeding the algal blooms that kill seagrass would help them more. CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida––The holiday season good news from the Indian River Lagoon region along the Florida east coast is that the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service on December 7, 2021 at last approved a Florida Wildlife Commission plan to […]
COVID-19: speedboat toll on manatees soars, but large land mammals get a break
Trump administration downlisted manatees to “threatened” status before body count doubled ST. PETERSBURG, Florida; DAVIS, California––More manatees, but fewer large land mammals, appear to have been hit by motor vehicles during the first five months of COVID-19 lockdowns, studies from four states show. The bad news for manatees, reported by the Florida Fish & Wildlife […]
Hurricanes: most famous fatality was Molly the dolphin
Molly’s life was microcosm of marine mammal captivity history MARATHON, Florida––Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria killed more than 200-and-counting humans among them, from Barbuda to the southern end of the Coastal Bend region of Texas, but the best-known victim so far was apparently a dolphin, Molly, who was among the oldest dolphins on record. Molly […]
Hurricane Irma: how wildlife endured
Any animals who could escape or hide did (See also Hurricane Irma: first reports on animals in the Caribbean islands, Hurricane Irma: Hemingway cats & dolphin rescuer Rick Trout rode it out in the Keys , and Hurricane Irma: survival stories from 24 zoos & sanctuaries .) Devastating as Hurricane Irma was to Caribbean habitat from Barbuda to the […]
Snooty, 69, last Florida manatee without propeller scars, drowns in tank
Oldest manatee on record was second born in captivity BRADENTON, Florida––Snooty, 69, both the oldest Florida manatee on record and the only Florida manatee on record who lacked scars from boat propellers, drowned on July 22, 2017 at the South Florida Aquarium in Bradenton, his almost lifelong home. Snooty had two scars on his […]