Manatee deaths linked to pollution have resumed in the algae-stricken Indian River Lagoon of Brevard County, according to state wildlife officials.
Since the end of May, eight manatee carcasses have been recovered, bearing signs of trauma that has killed more than 150 of the marine mammals in the past four years.
“We are still narrowing down the cause, but the hypothesis is still that the change of vegetation that the manatees are eating makes them to susceptible to complications in their guts,” said Martine de Wit, lead veterinarian at the Marine Mammal Pathobiology Laboratory of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission in St. Petersburg. “It gives them acute shock.”
The mortalities began in July 2012 when the Indian River, already ailing from pollution, was crippled with an outbreak of microscopic algae, turning waters strikingly brown or green and wiping out sea grass on which manatees forage.
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