Gov. Crist Sticks Up for the Sea Cow

State wildlife managers, once set to strip the manatee of its "endangered" status, may be poised to order a surprising change of course that would leave the iconic seacows atop Florida’s imperiled species list where they’ve been for decades.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, pushed by boating, business and building groups who argue that the manatee population has rebounded, was scheduled to make a final decision on the controversial move to knock them down a notch to "threatened" at a meeting Wednesday in Key Largo.

But questions from Gov. Charlie Crist appear likely to extend, perhaps indefinitely, a three-month reprieve the commission granted in September when Crist first stepped into the issue.

Despite a new statewide manatee management plan, Crist said Tuesday he remains concerned about uncertain population estimates, rising boat kills and a record 416 deaths overall last year.

"We need to protect these gentle creatures, and I’ve consistently felt that way," said Crist, who as a state senator pushed a bill to mandate propeller guards for boats.

Commission Chairman Rodney Barreto, a Miami businessman, said he would respond to Crist’s concerns — though he couldn’t predict what six fellow commissioners would do.

"He is our leader. He has asked us to look at it," Barreto said. "If we need to put it back on the table, I have no issue with it."

That would likely also reopen a larger, equally controversial debate over the state’s system for classifying at-risk animals, which environmentalists say favors developers.

Activists weren’t ready to celebrate but, with Crist’s message clear, they are suddenly hopeful the seacows will keep an endangered designation they argue is more than symbolic.

"We’ve insisted all along that this is about what you call them," said Pat Rose, executive director of the Save The Manatee Club. "What you call them dictates what you can do to protect them."

The governor’s intervention was a blow for a coalition of marine and development interests that campaigned for six years to bump the manatee off its endangered perch.

Ted Forsgren, executive director of the Coastal Conservation Association, a recreational fishing group, said the governor — and much of the public — is being swayed more by emotions than by surveys showing the population has grown to some 3,000 statewide.

The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, he points out, has reviewed the same data and is also recommending downlisting manatees to "threatened" on the federal species list.

"Every time it comes up [that] the adjective in front of manatees is going to be changed, everybody gets all upset," said Forsgren, whose 2001 petition to the state to review the manatee’s status ignited a backlash from groups frustrated by an increasing array of slow-speed boating zones and coastal building restrictions.

The squabbles may soon widen beyond manatees. Environmentalists intend to press for a fresh look at Florida’s entire listing process for imperiled species, which the FWC overhauled in 2005 while assessing manatees.

The state adopted international standards used by the World Conservation Union but adjusted the accompanying category names.

In September, for instance, the international union raised manatees to "endangered" under the same standards the FWC uses to classify it as "threatened," despite predictions population numbers could decline.

Even before the meeting, business groups that helped shape the rule were lining up to fight efforts to alter it.

In a letter last week to the commission, Douglas Rillstone, an attorney representing the Florida Chamber of Commerce, Florida Home Builders Association, Florida Farm Bureau and Association of Florida Community Developers, warned that such a move would threaten support for current programs to protect animals and habitat, including the gopher tortoise, which the FWC recently elevated to threatened.

No matter how the vote goes on the manatee’s status, Barreto said he is hopeful the commission will pass a new statewide protection plan he calls a landmark.

"What I don’t want to see happen is that you’ve got one side that sees they win and one side that sees they lost," Barreto said. "Florida needs to win. It’s a delicate balance."

Miami Herald Tallahassee bureau reporter Gary Fineout contributed to this story.