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Hi John,
Last year was the deadliest on record for manatees.
Polluted waters and disappearing seagrass have led to mass starvation. This is an ongoing survival crisis for manatees — there are no signs that it's letting up.
So we just went to court — again — to secure a future for these gentle giants by protecting their homes.
Please help with an urgent gift to the Center's Saving Life on Earth Fund.
More than half of the record 1,100 deaths of Florida manatees in 2021 were in prime year-round habitat in the Indian River Lagoon on the Atlantic Coast.
Hundreds died of starvation there due to loss of seagrass.
This reflects nearly a 20% loss in the Atlantic population of Florida manatees and a 12% loss of all manatees in Florida in a single year.
The spike in manatee deaths, which officials called an "unusual mortality event," is ecocide — and it has to stop now. Federal, state and local agencies must act with greater urgency.
The Center has fought for years to protect manatees, including with lawsuits to secure Endangered Species Act protection for them and to save them from harmful algal blooms.
Last month we launched legal action to force the Environmental Protection Agency to work with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to address the clean-water standards that are failing manatees so tragically.
Our latest lawsuit challenges the Service's inaction to revise manatees' critical habitat — which the Service agreed was necessary more than a decade ago.
The manatee death toll from last year — and the loss of close to 100 manatees already in 2022 — is proof Florida's manatees are in crisis.
If we're going to put these gentle creatures on the path to recovery, it needs to start now by giving them a home free of pollution and full of enough food to eat.
We'll keep going to court and doing whatever it takes to save manatees. We won't abandon them, and we know you won't either.
Please give today to the Saving Life on Earth Fund and help us save manatees.
For the wild,
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