Manatee Death Toll Highest Ever Recorded | National Geographic

the manatee deaths that we were having
this year are scary to the people here
in in Citrus County I think for a couple
of reasons I think you know it’s easy to
understand deaths of a manatee from a
boating strike even kind of easy
gathering for people to understand
deaths of a manatee from red tide that’s
a naturally occurring phenomenon but
when you have what’s happening over in
Indian River Lagoon you have these
deaths that they cannot pinpoint what is
going on I think it is scary you know
Disney’s not going to build a theme park
here Ford’s not going to build a plant
and these manatees are the absolute
economic lifeblood of this area we are
fishing community we’re not a beach town
fishing and manatee says why why people
come here we are the only place outside
of Belize where you can actually legally
swim with the manatees and people come
from all over the world to swim with the
manatees
things like the Volkswagen they were so
ugly that every bill fell in love with
it seriously
the more you look at a man T the more
you fall in love with it and especially
if once you get in the water and you get
this 18 hundred pound gentle giant come
right at your face and give you a hug
and you see it right through your mask
just wants to look at you like hey I
want to be your friend it’s really hard
to resist we don’t have the power plan
anymore that’s generated a lot of jobs
the tourism here is pretty built on the
manatees in the wintertime it brings it
started with like 80,000 people want to
predict 200,000 people this year it’s a
big growing it keeps the restaurants the
hotel’s it generates employment with
boats companies charter companies so
it’s a win-win situation for everybody
no de San they’re using the manatees as
the Canaries of the freshwater once they
started getting sick then we really need
to get concern killing a 2,000 pound
mammals and hundred or two hundred pound
mammal needs to be aware of it too
you