Manatees are gentle aquatic mammals whose welfare in the wild is severely threatened by boat strikes, habitat loss, cold stress events, and the collapse of the seagrass ecosystems they depend upon.
Manatee welfare in the wild has deteriorated significantly in recent years as cascading environmental problems converge on a species that cannot quickly adapt. The collapse of seagrass in the Indian River Lagoon — driven by pollution-fueled algal blooms — has caused starvation deaths at an unprecedented scale. Manatees weakened by malnutrition are less able to avoid boat strikes and less resilient to cold events. Cold stress syndrome — where manatees cluster in warm-water refuges like power plant outflows, often in dangerously crowded conditions — is a welfare crisis that intensifies as warming winters produce unexpected cold snaps. Boat strike injuries, while survivable in some cases, cause significant suffering through wound infection and loss of mobility. Wildlife rescue operations provide welfare benefits to individual injured and starving manatees, but systemic threats require watershed-scale water quality restoration. The 2021 Unusual Mortality Event highlighted the urgency of addressing the fundamental environmental drivers of manatee welfare decline.