Florida manatees are threatened by boat strikes, cold stress syndrome, and red tide algal blooms; their slow, surface-dwelling behavior makes them uniquely vulnerable to human activities.
Manatees surviving boat strikes often carry permanent propeller wounds and live with chronic pain from repeated injuries. During cold stress events, manatees aggregate at warm water outflows from power plants in stressed, energy-depleted states. The 2021 mortality crisis revealed that seagrass loss from pollution had left surviving manatees chronically malnourished. Every boat strike and every algal bloom represents individual welfare harm multiplied across thousands of animals.