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Manatee No Longer An Endangered Species (miamiherald.com)
An anonymous reader quotes the Miami Herald:
The manatee -- for decades the poster mammal for environmental decline in Florida -- is officially no longer an endangered species. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced Thursday that the manatee will instead be designated "threatened" -- a status change that reflects a boom in population over the last decade. In February, Florida wildlife managers released preliminary results of an annual count that recorded 6,620 manatees lumbering in the warm waters of Florida's lagoons, springs and canals... "We believe this is a devastating blow to manatees," Patrick Rose, Executive Director for Save the Manatee Club, said in a statement. "A federal reclassification at this time will seriously undermine the chances of securing the manatee's long- term survival."
It was the third consecutive year to see an increase in the estimated population of manatees.
It was the third consecutive year to see an increase in the estimated population of manatees.
Well, a devastating blow to people who have invested their entire lives in telling people that manatees are dying off.
Look, it's fine. We know about them, we figured out how not to kill them by accident.
You did a good thing.
Now, it's time to scale back the fearmongering just a bit.
Considering that they published a twelve month finding on the proposal to reclassify at the beginning of 2016, no, it probably can't be blamed on the Trump administration.
His salary was $86,192 in 2014. Patrick is effectively the entire administrative expense of the Save the Manatee Club (9.9% of the budget is taken up by administrative expenses, 7.13% of the budget is Patrick's salary). There are 8 additional "staff" positions - they seem to be a combination of volunteers or are compensated under "fund raising" or "program" expenses.
I'd say this is probably his major source of income. It's a small organization (around $1.4M) and seems to do good work, but its income flow is entirely dependent on donors that are concerned about the status of the manatee.