MAN AND MANATEE\Florida scrambles to slow death rate for ocean creature.

Byline: Nicole Winfield Associated Press 

Just off U.S. 1, in a rundown neighborhood dominated by the smokestacks and humming blue coils of a power plant, 6-year-old Reade Gilbert presses his face against a chain-link fence and points at Florida's primeval past.

"There he is!" cries Reade, as a manatee comes up for air. "Look at his nose, his nose!"

Perhaps no other endangered animal enjoys such widespread support for preservation as the manatee, the whiskered, walrus-like sea cow that has been in Florida's waters for more than 45 million years.

Nearly a half-million Florida license plates bear the image of the manatee, bumper stickers and T-shirts cry out to save it, and a 40,000-member group founded by singer Jimmy Buffett has made one named Chessie an international icon.

Yet, despite federal, state and local efforts, the beasts are dying off at a high rate. Scientists and advocates don't agree on why or what to do about it.

Part of the problem is determining how many manatees are left. The state Department of Environmental Protection sent planes up and down the coast three days this week and counted 2,274 manatees as they gathered near warm mineral springs and in canals where power plants discharge warm water. Last January, a similar survey counted 1,822 manatees.

The cold weather that dumped 1-1/2 to 3 feet of snow in the Northeast made for ideal counting conditions since the manatees, which migrate from the Carolinas to Florida every winter, huddle in warm water when the temperature dips.

Research scientist Bruce Ackerman, who was in charge of the survey, said he was encouraged by the increased number. But manatees remain in danger.

Statistics released last week showed that 9 percent of the known population, or 201 manatees, died in 1995, the second-highest number of deaths since the state began counting the animals in 1974.

At least 42 of the deaths were attributed to boats, which gash the animals with their propellers or drown them by colliding with them. Fifty-three other deaths were unclassified, meaning the carcasses were too decomposed to determine the cause.

The higher 1995 total doesn't necessarily mean manatees are dying from some new threat, like bacteria or increased pollution, said Brad Weigle, a scientist at the Florida Marine Research Institute in St. Petersburg, where the beasts were tagged and samples of their blood drawn Thursday.

The higher number of deaths could simply mean that there's better reporting now, or that there are more manatees than the state knows about.

Nevertheless, state officials and advocates are worried, since any slight increase in the mortality rate could mean extinction for the mammal, which reproduces once every two to five years.

"If there are only 2,000 manatees, and we have 200 deaths, you cannot ignore the fact that that's a fairly scary death rate," said David Arnold, who heads the DEP's Bureau of Protected Species Management. "Perhaps the cries of alarm are appropriate if it motivates us to reduce that mortality where we can and to assist in the reproduction where we can."

Toward that end, the state has ordered the 13 counties frequented by manatees to establish slow-speed zones for boats. Twelve have done so.

But lack of enforcement in the zones has kept the mortality rate up, said Judith Vallee, executive director of the Save the Manatee Club, a nonprofit group that has tracked the manatee named Chessie as far north as Rhode Island.

"The state is counting on voluntary compliance. But those who choose to comply are already doing it," she said. "It's negligent on the part of the Florida Legislature not to beef up enforcement."

Arnold defended the speed zones but cautioned that speeding boats aren't solely to blame for dead manatees.

"Any time you're dealing with an endangered species, there's an emotional response to these numbers," he said. "Even if we eliminate entirely the boat-related manatee mortalities, we will still have dead manatees" from natural causes.

The state doesn't plan to alter its protection program, though it plans to increase the amount of lab work to determine what kills the manatees besides boats.

In the winter, manatee-watching is a popular pastime around Florida's power plants and mineral springs.

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PHOTO

Photo A state biology team examines a manatee found near a power plant in Tampa, Fla.