PEER Florida Manatee Buzz Kill: "Crystal River Divers Endangering Manatees in Florida"

By Elizabeth Nelson

How is it that liberals think they have the right to stand outside a glass house, throw self-righteous stones and then attempt to tell everyone else how they should live their lives, based solely on an interpretation of what they believe they see going on inside the house?  

Only got a couple shots worth sharing. Water was 2 hazy in quite a few spots that we stopped. Then came dolphins. :) pic.twitter.com/5Tbj25h4XO
— Redheaded Mischief (@ElizabethNels0n) April 6, 2015

As some of you may know, I was in the Tampa area swimming with the Manatees in the Crystal River National Wildlife Refuge. It was an amazing experience and a good thing I went when I did, because I'm now finding out that PEER is suing the very place I went, and others like it, trying to stop these manatee tours, claiming we are "doing them harm," swimming with the manatees in their own environment. 

At Crystal River National Wildlife Refuge in Florida’s Citrus County, you can drop $45 to spend some time bobbing around with a herd of sea cows. It’s a sure sign that the manatee is on the rebound. After years of being threatened with extinction, Florida’s wild populations of the rotund aquatic mammals have reached heights that allow tourists to snap selfies with the gentle creatures.

Part of the reason for the rebound is facilities like the one at Crystal River, located on Florida’s Gulf coast northwest of Tampa, which serves as a tourist destination and a wildlife refuge for the manatees. 

Where to begin? Here’s what PEER has to say in the lawsuit:

By issuing special-use permits to local dive shops that lead manatee swim tours, PEER says the environmental agency is harming the animals.

“Five years ago, we served a similar notice but agreed to hold off suing because the service promised to make improvements,” said PEER Counsel Laura Dumais. “In the succeeding years, the problems have only gotten worse, and it has become clear that the Service has no intention of taking meaningful corrective action.”

Wait, weren't they once "endangered manatees" and now they are on the rebound and that's because of places like Crystal River National Wildlife Refuge and the money they raise from the tours that is the cause of their rebound, not the cause of their "endangerment."

The effort has the appearance of an overreaction. Natural events such as cold water and toxic red-tides have done far more to harm manatees in recent years than human contact. In the overlapping period, the animals have made impressive gains.  Read more Watchdog

Biologists at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recommended removing the Florida manatee from the endangered species list in 2007 because the wild population had increased to more than 3,000. But the change never went through and even though there are more than 4,800 manatees today, the creature is still officially listed as endangered.  Read more Watchdog

So PEER, looking from the outside in, wants to shut down the fun at Crystal River and force the feds to require that humans stay at least 10 feet away from every manatee in the state of Florida, even though the feds that once created the sanctuaries, starting in 1972, to protect the once endangered manatees now understand and admit that the population of manatee aren't endangered anymore?

drifting (NO kicking up silt) in Jurassic Spring,FL. Had as much fun w/the new mask as I did looking for sea cows pic.twitter.com/C1O6MOAwGC
— Redheaded Mischief (@ElizabethNels0n) April 6, 2015

What PEER isn't telling you is, these diver shops are very strict in what we can and can't do. We couldn't break the surface of the water, so we could ONLY float along the top of the water, so as to not to kick up the silt and were forbidden to violate their personal space or to go into their sanctuaries.

We also had to follow a plethora of common sense rules that we were given beforehand.  Along with the fact that we had a guide with us at all times. So, how could we be "endangering or harming" these gentle creatures, by "passively observing" them in their habitat?  Of course, liberals are allergic to common sense and they would sooner protect herbivorous marine mammals than unborn children, so I don't know why I waste my breath.