[SunnyUsa]

I think there is a whole industry built up around Saving the Manatees etc....

They won't let go of this 'endangered' status easily!

[Ragtime Cowgirl]

 

License Plate			Manatee
Date Enacted			March 16, 1990
Special Fee			$20 annual fee (plus registration fees)
Cumulative Plates issued			504,091
Cumulative Amount Generated (including renewals)			$28,600,882
Sales by county (1997/1998)
Amount Generated in 2001			$2,077,261.48
Amount Generated in 2000			$2,134,745.00
Amount Generated in 1999			$2,157,176.27
Amount Generated in 1998			$2,113,702.12
Amount Generated in 1997			$2,302,308.78
Amount Generated in 1996			$2,396,500.62
Amount Generated in 1995			$2,622,404.50
Amount Generated in 1994			$2,826,525.00
Amount Generated in 1993			$2,829,206.71
Distribution of Special Fee			100% Save the Manatee Trust Fund

Cumulative Totals Updated Quarterly.

Link

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Please let me know if you want on or off my Fla. Freeper "'til election day" ping list.

[NautiNurse]

But...but...but what about all the horror stories about the boats and props?

p.s. I grow romaine lettuce to feed the manatees that visit me here. Had mom and babe last year---cool stuff! They hang out under my boat when it's up on the lift.

[justsomedude]

it's like a 'personal whale.' every state ought to have it's own left wing, self-righteousness-feeding cause celeb that can be used as a political weapon. Soon, cities and even neighborhoods will have them. What a wonderful world, indeed.

cold and misty morning I heard a warning borne in the air; about an age of power where noone had an hour to spare. where the seeds had withered, starving children shivered in the cold. Now their faces captured in the ledgers of the jackals for gold. -- ELP

Sorry. Got whales to save.

"That's the thing about WASPS. They love animals; they hate people." -- Gordon Gekko, Wall Street.

[LibKill]

The really important question is, are they good to eat? :)

I was just kidding. I will go stand in the corner now.

[sharktrager]

I never understood lots of the endangered species stuff.

If, as they claim, manatees were stupid enough to be almost completely wiped out by motor boats, then any true believer in evolution should have no problem with their extinction. The strong survive, the week are eliminated.

Same thing goes for cheetahs. They expend an obscene amount of energy to hunt, which then forces them to hunt more. Other cats have survived just fine in the same environment. Doesn't sound to me like they are equipped to survive.

[Joe Boucher]

Manatees are a pain in the butt. The govt. slows miles of waterway traffic for a few of these fat slow pains. Fort Pierce has spent millions of dollars on a manatee observation center that is on the outtake canal for its local ower plant. The manatees used to come up into this little canal in the winter because the water was several degrees warmer. Then they stopped using the powere plant and the manatees stopped coming. The govt still keeps spending millions on the center touting it as a tourist bonanza.
The manatee should be raised and harvested for manatee steaks and manatee burgers similar to what ted turner is doing with buffalo.
Anyone got any good manatee recepies?

[Go Gordon]

Researchers from the Florida Marine Research Institute have recommended that the Florida manatee be downgraded from an endangered species to a threatened one, according to a preliminary report released Wednesday.

Cool! Whats the bag limit gonna be?

[Andyman]

Researchers from the Florida Marine Research Institute have recommended that the Florida manatee be downgraded from an endangered species to a threatened one. . .

One word popped out at me. Downgraded. I would think that an animal no longer threatened would be upgraded. After all, when a patient in a hospital goes from Critical to Serious, it is an upgrade is it not? What does this tell us? That in the eyes of environmentalists the only good animal (one that can be used as a political football) is an endangered animal.

As for manatee meat, if we could find a market out there for it I can guarantee that the beasts would no longer be endangered, threatened, or otherwise in short supply.

[MotleyGirl70]

Report: Sea cow not endangered

When I first saw this I thought is would be about Ted Kennedy.

[Sungirl]

Oh great.....now the boaters won't even bother if they see them in their path..they will just continue and run them over.....so many are maimed by careless boaters...

[Liberal Classic]

They good eatin?