By Mike Sharkey
Staff Writer
It’s been more than a decade since the City’s manatee protection plan was adopted and given the changes in the Jacksonville recreation and commercial landscape and the growth of the manatee population, it’s time the plan was revised.
That’s the consensus of a group that met Thursday with a subcommittee of the Jacksonville Waterways Commission. City Council member Bill Bishop, who chairs the Waterways Commission, formed the group as a result of Duval County surpassing the State-mandated threshold of five manatee deaths over the course of a 12-month period.
Kipp Frohlich, section leader of the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission, said there have actually been nine manatee mortalities over the past 12 months. Frohlich said how the manatees are killed is not the issue. The trigger point for the State to get involved is five in a year.
“Unfortunately, every few years, the five or more threshold is met,” he said, adding this is the fourth time Duval County has surpassed the acceptable number. “We are getting better at determining what type of vessel is causing the deaths. We do a necropsy on each one and some are obvious.”
Dr. Quinton White, director of the Marine Science Center at Jacksonville University, said the growth of the local manatee population certainly plays a role. Simply put, the more manatees combined with an active waterways system is going to likely result in more fatalities.
“The data shows the manatee population in Duval County is getting higher and higher. We were naïve 10 years ago,” said White. “The reality is manatees die. We are not sure how many were sick and got hit. An increase in the manatee population means an increase in manatee deaths. It’s not a black and white issue. It’s real gray.”
In addition to Waterways Commission members and the FWC, Bishop asked members of the Jacksonville Port Authority, the Coast Guard, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office Marine Patrol to attend the meeting and offer input. Bishop also asked each entity to submit what it does to assure manatee safety. He compiled that information into a document that may become the basis for the county’s new manatee protection plan. Jody McDaniel, recreation planning and grants coordinator for the City’s Planning and Development department, will produce the document the City will send to the state for final approval. The Council and Waterways Commission must also approve the plan.
Port Authority Executive Director Rick Ferrin and Dave Kaufman, senior director of acquisitions of property and strategic planning, were on hand to talk about how the Port affects river traffic and the impact that traffic has on manatees now and the impact it may have as the population grows and expands over the next few years.
According to Ferrin, only about half of the large vessel traffic can be attributed to the Port and even that is misleading. The Port, Ferrin said, is a landlord port and thus doesn’t actually navigate the river. The large cargo containers that enter the river and unload at the Port-owned Dames Point, Talleyrand and Blount Island Terminals are owned by private shippers. They are also met near the mouth of the St. Johns River by tugs and barges that navigate the cargo ships to the docks at the Port terminals. Those docks, explained Ferrin, are manatee friendly and have either fenders that prevent manatees from getting crushed between the vessels and the docks or the docks have space below the water line that manatees could use to escape being crushed.
“The Port has had a long-term commitment to manatee protection,” said Kaufman. “We also help fund research by JU. We have not had a crushing death in the last eight or nine years.”
Bishop questioned how the City will know if its plan is adequate and if those who use the local waterways are doing all they can to protect manatees and if a certain number of deaths are unavoidable no matter what.
“We would indicate success as a significant reduction in fatalities over time,” said Dawn Jennings, a biologist with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. “How we enforce it could be the issue. If there are measures in place and you make people aware of the seriousness of the issue, then you’ve done your part.”
356-2466