adjacent to those areas that could reduce grass bed 

 productivity or render those areas hazardous to 

 manatees; 



(3) as appropriate, the Fish and Wildlife Service and 

 the State of Florida consider cooperative efforts 

 to acquire and protect additional undeveloped 

 shorelines adjacent to particularly important manatee 

 habitat along a 30-mile stretch of the upper St. 

 Johns River north and south of Blue Spring and 

 along the Tomoka River; and 



(4) cooperative arrangements be undertaken among the 

 Fish and Wildlife Service, the Florida Department 

 of Natural Resources, and industries to assess and, 

 to the extent practicable, avoid adverse effects of 

 foreseeable interruptions in the availability of 

 heated power plant effluent upon which manatees 

 have come to depend for refuge from cold weather. 



In addition to the above actions, the Commission's report 

 also recommended actions to restore and enhance manatee 

 habitats. With respect to restoration, it recommended that 

 the Fish and Wildlife Service initiate consultations with the 

 National Aeronautics and Space Administration to explore the 

 possibility of reconnecting a manatee travel corridor at the 

 Kennedy Space Center that was blocked by construction of a 

 solid fill causeway built to carry the space shuttle to its 

 launch pad. The travel corridor would provide access between 

 the principal north-south travel route for manatees along the 

 Indian River and the northern Banana River, which is one of 

 the most important spring and summer habitats on the East 

 Coast. With respect to enhancement, the report recommended 

 that a pilot study be undertaken to examine the potential 

 feasibility of creating new protected manatee habitats in 

 coastal waters presently too shallow to be used by manatees. 



On 22 December 1988, the Commission transmitted its 

 report to the Fish and Wildlife Service. In its letter, the 

 Commission noted that the East Coast manatee population was 

 clearly at risk and that unless actions, such as those 

 identified in its report, are taken immediately to better 

 protect manatees and manatee habitats, the last opportunity 

 to secure the long-term existence of a viable, self-sustain- 

 ing East Coast population in the wild may be lost. The 

 Commission therefore requested that it be advised of the 

 Service's views on the recommendations made in the report and 

 of the steps it would take to implement them. In this regard, 

 the Commission invited a Service representative to address 

 the matter at the Commission's next Annual Meeting scheduled 

 for February 1989. 



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