this was the situation when i visited the park on the morning of january 4, 2022. during a brief conversation, a park attendant explained the absence of the animals. the weather was warm and the manatees only gathered in the park’s waters when they needed the artificial warmth generated by a nearby power plant. 

the warm conditions of that morning meant the only manatees i saw on that trip were plastic statues. it was disappointing for me as a wildlife photographer on a family vacation to florida –– but i do not begrudge the animals for not making an appearance. they were better off foraging for food while the weather was warm than huddling together in the aquatic equivalent of a climate refugee camp. these animals have suffered through a lot in the last few years and need every day of warm water they can get. 

florida’s starving manatees

the manatee population living along florida’s east coast has been suffering from an “unusual mortality event” or ume since december 2020. the florida fish and wildlife conservation commission (fwc) reported that 1101 manatees died across florida in 2021. for comparison, the fwc reported just 637 manatee fatalities in 2020. the number of manatee fatalities in 2021 jumped 476 deaths over the 5-year average of 625 fatalities a year. according to florida director of the center for biological diversity jaclyn lopez, the manatee deaths witnessed in florida between the beginning of the ume and february 2022 are equivalent to 12-13% of the state’s total manatee population. 

according to lopez and the fwc, the cause of the recent manatee death crisis is the collapse of the seagrass population in warm water areas that manatees in eastern florida use to survive the winter. high levels of nitrogen and phosphorus caused by human water pollution (such as agricultural and suburban waste water runoff) allow naturally occurring algae to grow into harmful algae blooms. these algae blooms block sunlight from passing through the water to the seagrass beds below, devastating the manatee’s main food source. the manatees are then forced to choose between congregating in warm water areas that no longer have enough seagrass to support them or venturing out into areas where the winter water is too cold for them to survive. 

both lopez and the fwc point to indian river lagoon as the epicenter of this crisis. according to lopez, the lagoon is kept at a toasty 68 degrees because of artificial warming created by discharge from a nearby nuclear power plant. it has traditionally been an indispensable wintering area for manatees, but now it no longer has enough seagrass to support the animals who gather there, causing mass starvation and numerous fatalities. 

emergency lettuce for manatees

the united states fish and wildlife service (usfws) and the fwc have responded to the ume with the formation of a joint incident management team with a joint unified command (uc) to coordinate the government’s response. under the framework of this taskforce, federal and state conservation officials have worked together to monitor the situation, keep the public informed, and minimize manatee casualties. the most drastic effort undertaken by the taskforce was a pilot feeding program in which officials would provide manatees with lettuce. according to the fwc, before the feeding program manatees would “completely fast or consume elements with no or little nutritional value, including sand or other debris.” the supplemental feeding trial was implemented in order to “reduce the negative health impacts of prolonged starvation and possibly reduce the numbers of deaths and manatees needing rescue.”

the manatees began to eat the lettuce wildlife officials placed into the water on january 20, 2022. the fwc does not currently have an estimate on the total number of manatees fed by the program. the number of animals visiting the temporary field response station (tfrs) in indian river lagoon, where the feeding was being carried out, varied, with a single-day high of 800 individuals. the feeding program was discontinued on march 31, since most of the manatees dispersed to better feeding grounds as the waters warmed. a scaled down uc is continuing to monitor the area for distressed manatees over the summer.

when asked about the feeding program, lopez called it a “necessary stopgap” and “an essential emergency measure” but argued it was not a viable long term solution. patrick rose, executive director of the save the manatee club, agreed with lopez, saying the program “cannot possibly be relied on for the long term future.” he also called the program “tragically necessary” and said that the need for it was “predictable” given the government’s failure to adequately deal with water quality issues. 

the lawsuits

three conservation groups, the center for biological diversity, defenders of wildlife, and the save the manatee club, have responded to the ume with lawsuits against the usfws and the environmental protection agency (epa).

according to lopez and rose, the conservation groups hope the lawsuit against the usfws will force the agency to update the “critical habitat designation” of florida manatees. critical habitat is defined as the air, land, food, and water essential for the survival of a species. rose explained that the current critical habitat designation for florida manatees was included in the original 1973 endangered species act and that it has not been expanded to keep pace with new science and regulations in the years since that law’s passage. the endangered species act requires federal agencies take into account how their policies impact the critical habitat of endangered and threatened species when crafting policy.

according to lopez and rose, the usfws actually agreed with environmental groups that the critical habitat designation for florida manatees needed to be updated back in 2008. however, the agency has so far not dedicated the needed resources to update the designation. the agency currently has until june 24 to answer the complaint of the conservation groups in court. lopez put the purpose of the lawsuit succinctly, saying, “if we protect manatee habitat, they won’t starve to death.”

according to the save the manatee club, the lawsuit against the epa over its failure to consult with the usfws on water quality standards and its inadequate enforcement of those standards was filed on may 10. 

when asked about the lawsuits, a representative of the usfws said: “the u.s. fish and wildlife service is aware of the litigation, but we do not comment on litigation as a matter of policy.” the agency also said that: “the existing florida manatee critical habitat designation includes the indian river lagoon at the epicenter of the ongoing ume.”

the uncertain future of a florida icon

in the long term, efforts will need to be made to restore water quality and manatee habitats so that these herbivorous marine mammals can thrive without human feeding programs. hopefully these changes are made so that tourists and florida residents alike will be able to enjoy the spectacle of seeing these wonderful creatures in the wild for generations to come.

the men behind the biotech startup colossal biosciences don’t want to bring back the species to stock a prehistoric theme park. instead, they claim their “functional mammoths” will be a powerful tool in the fight against climate change. this venture not only raises the question of how science can resurrect a long-dead species… but should it?

the tools to build a new breed of mammoth

colossal biosciences, which was co-founded by harvard geneticist george church and tech entrepreneur ben lamm, claimed to have received $15 million in investment as of september 2021. according to the founders, their team can develop “functional mammoths” within six to seven years.

lamm stressed that these new mammoths would not be genetically identical to those that lived during the pleistocene epoch 11 thousand years ago or even the remnant populations that died out 4 thousand years ago. they would be hybrids of mammoths and their closest living relatives, asian elephants. the genomes of these hybrids would be created by combining genetic material from frozen mammoth carcasses with elephant dna. 

“they’re not 100% and so think of it almost like a dog breed,” lamm said. “you got your purebreds and you got –– like what i have –– rescues.” 

asian elephants and wooly mammoths share about 95.8% of their mitochondrial dna. the genetic similarities allow colossal to use genetic material from asian elephants to build the functional mammoth genome using what church calls “genome engineering tools.” he compared the approach to those currently being tested to grow organs in pigs that are more compatible to be transplanted into humans. in this case, scientists would work to incorporate mammoth cold tolerance traits, including cold-tolerant hemoglobin and shaggy coats, from mammoth dna into asian elephant embryos.

in terms of mammoths, church described the potential process like this: elephant cells would be edited, in petri dishes away from live animals, to carry mammoth genetic material in each cell’s nucleus. the cells’ nucleuses would later be extracted and implanted into an elephant embryo. the embryo would then be fertilized through in vitro fertilization and grown in artificial wombs.

colossal has determined that elephants would not host these embryos for both practical and moral reasons, as asian elephants are an endangered species with a 18-22 month gestation period. while there are limited numbers of potential elephant surrogates, the artificial wombs would allow the program to scale over time as more wombs are created. church said they also intend to produce embryos and sperm from stem cells. 

the arctic elephant in the room: should we bring back mammoths?

talking about the science behind colossal’s mission avoids the arctic elephant in the room: should we be bringing back mammoths? dj schubert, a wildlife biologist and conservationist with the animal welfare institute, is skeptical.

“the question is not whether it can be done –– but whether it should be done,” schubert said. “and, from my perspective, i think we have enough species that are currently in dire conditions that we should be focusing our conservation efforts and our conservation dollars on saving those species.”

schubert expressed frustration that $15 million was invested to bring back the mammoth and argued resources should be spent protecting modern megafauna. he was also concerned that scientists may not have considered the morality of species resurrection, worrying about the fairness of reviving an animal to cage it. 

“let those species rest in peace and instead let’s focus our efforts on preserving what still remains,” he said. 

colossal pushes back against these criticisms. according to church and lamm, colossal’s goal is not to develop functional mammoths out of pure curiosity, but to fight climate change and develop technologies with applications including conservation.  

stomping out greenhouse gases

church hopes the first arctic elephants will not live in captivity but in a preserve such as pleistocene park, an experimental nature preserve in the russian arctic that is recreating the mammoth-steppe ecosystem. according to the park’s current director nikita zimov, the project seeks to restore this ecosystem through the reintroduction of animals in the hopes of fighting climate change through grassland creation and permafrost preservation. 

zimov said his father came up with the idea during the soviet era and his family has been working on the project since 1996. the pleistocene park concept predates the blockbuster that inspired its would-be name. but unlike jurassic park, pleistocene park is not meant to be a theme park. 

according to zimov, it’s intended to be a self-expanding ecosystem large enough to impact the climate and provide habitat to millions of animals. currently the preserve is only 144 square kilometers, but numerous native and exotic species have been introduced including reindeer, yakutian horses, moose, bison, musk ox, yaks and kalmykian cows. according to zimov, the mammoths would transform the park and fight climate change by toppling trees and trampling snow.

while this may seem counterintuitive, zimov explained the apparent paradox. 

“if you come to the arctic, the effect of planting trees (to store carbon) is not that great,” zimov said. “trees are sparse, small, and they grow extremely poor(ly).” 

the deep root systems of fast growing arctic grasses are more effective at storing carbon in the arctic environment than the trunks of slow growing trees. the mammoth’s propensity for toppling trees would expand the grassland ecosystem more quickly than would otherwise be possible, and allow for more carbon to be stored.

the mammoths would also preserve permafrost, the layer of subsurface arctic soil that has remained frozen for many millennia. as rising global temperatures melt permafrost, it releases hundreds of thousands of years of methane, a greenhouse gas that is 25 times as potent as co2. scientists worry this will start a positive feedback loop and hasten global warming. 

the permafrost in the soils of the arctic contain 1,460-1,600 billion metric tons of carbon, about twice as much as currently contained in earth’s atmosphere. the release of all this carbon by melting permafrost would be disastrous for global ecosystems and human civilization. 

cooling permafrost will prevent methane emissions. this is where pleistocene park’s animals come into the picture. zimov said permafrost is heated during the summer but cannot cool during winter because the ground is buried beneath snowfall, which has increased due to climate change. 

“this snow is acting as a heat insulator and that’s why permafrost is five degrees warmer than (the) temperature of air,” zimov said. “if you would now remove the snow entirely very quickly, within several years, the temperature of permafrost would be going down.” 

zimov said grazing animals protect permafrost by removing the thick layer of snow to access the food underneath. the snow is compacted during the foraging process making it a much less effective insulator than thick, undisturbed snow. once the thick snow has been cleared, the temperature of the permafrost beneath the ground drops.

mammoths could trample snow especially effectively because of their size and the amount of food they would eat.

when asked about the project’s climate benefits schubert of the animal welfare institute said that the project should continue using extant animals for the project, not extinct species.

“i have nothing against anyone thinking outside the box because i think that’s what is going to be necessary to frankly save this planet,” he said. “i just think that if they’re seeing success using these proxy animals, i think they should use these proxy animals… (instead of) trying to bring back animals that have long since been dead.” 

a future of technologically-enabled conservation

lamm said he hopes the genetic tools and artificial wombs being developed for mammoths will help preserve other species. he compared the development of arctic elephants to the apollo missions in terms of its potential for spinoff technology. he even expressed the hope that there may soon be the technology for 50 rhino calves to be brought to term in a lab at a time before release into the wild. 

“we hope that (this) will be relevant to many other endangered species as well,” church said. “the focus is on endangered species and environmental impact that would be helpful to humans; it’s not about de-extinction.”

even schubert expressed optimism about using colossal’s technology to help contemporary species, especially those that are currently endangered. still, schubert said the best way for humans to protect species is to address why they became endangered; only then should genetic solutions be considered.

in “jurassic park,” scientist ian malcolm chastises billionaire john hammond for creating dinosaurs, saying, “your scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.” now, we are having that debate in real life about mammoths. if nothing else, the fact that we are having this debate is a step forward. 

the exact amount of land currently protected varies depending on who you ask, but a 2018 report from the center for american progress estimates that only about 12% of the nation’s land and 26% of its waters are protected. the biden administration has a lot of work ahead of it if it’s going to increase these numbers, especially if they want to do so in a way that will actually benefit biodiversity, climate, and the myriad of other goals listed in the executive order.

blake alexander simmons, an ecologist with boston university, was the lead researcher on a recently released white paper that examined how the biden administration should go about delivering on his conservation commitments. the study created four maps of hypothetical protected area networks in the continental u.s. that could get the country to 30% protection, each with one of four different objectives in mind. the objectives were biodiversity preservation, climate change mitigation, connected landscape preservation, and ease of reaching the area goal by 2030.

together the maps revealed challenges for the biden administration going forward. for instance simmons noted how little land in the u.s. meets all the requirements listed by the administration: “even just with those four objectives let alone of all of the others that are in biden’s executive order it’s going to be really hard to find where we can get win, win, win, win; wins across the board. so tradeoffs are gonna come into play and that’s why it’s really important that we get clear very early on what objectives really matter.”

even the few regions that are highlighted in all four maps like northern maine, may be highlighted so often because of local ordinances mandating non-disclosure agreements for land sales, limiting the study’s data set and showing land prices as artificially low and attractive. the unfortunate challenge is that land that hosts biodiverse habitat does not necessarily hold a lot of carbon or sit upon property that can be cheaply bought and converted to conservation purposes.

for instance much of america’s unprotected biodiversity lies in the southeast where protected areas are rare and small. buying land to build new preserves could be prohibitively expensive due to the region’s high land costs, so other measures like conservation easements (agreements with landowners to manage their property for biodiversity) will be needed. it would be easy to just preserve large swaths of the west to reach the land goal but this would not deliver biodiversity or climate benefits.

jacob malcom, the director for the center of conservation innovation at defenders of wildlife, expressed hope that the biden administration was up to the task. his organization has been involved with the white house and numerous other stakeholders in the conservation community and beyond in developing the plan by which the 30% by 2030 will be reached. 

he said: “this is something that’s completely doable. we can do this and the fact that this is an all hands on deck — it’s everybody’s involved. it’s not a top down. it is the president setting a goal for the country, but it’s not a dictation of how this will be achieved. we can do this for nature, for climate, for people to be a part of these things.”

when the scientist returned to the remote patch of cloud forest the next summer, all of the amphibians had vanished. not only the tree frogs were gone, but also the toads and the stream frogs. the streams were eerily silent and empty. the mysterious 1993 disappearance of the amphibians would change the course of the scientist’s life and unveil a global ecological disaster. 

the scientist was karen lips, an ecologist now working with the university of maryland’s biology department. she has dedicated her life to the study and preservation of amphibians. she returned to the research site in the summer of 1996 to a forest devoid of amphibian life. lips observed no obvious change to the habitat to explain the 90 percent decline of all the local frog species in such a short time span. 

by the time she returned to the u.s. that september, she was ready to present an argument to the scientific community that her costa rica site had experienced an enigmatic amphibian decline. enigmatic amphibian declines are mysterious mass disappearances of amphibians that occur without any obvious change to their environment. lips had been reading reports about the mysterious disappearance of amphibian populations around the world since she was a grad student. her research would eventually help reveal the culprit: an invasive microscopic fungus called batrachochytrium dendrobatidis or bd.

bd spreads between ecosystems infecting amphibians when the fungus’s spores pass from the water into an unsuspecting amphibian’s skin. the fungus will then kill the creature over the course of two weeks by disrupting the animal’s electrolyte balance and reducing its number of lymphocyte immune cells. once the amphibian is dead more spores grown in the dying creature will be released through the skin into the environment to infect more animals completing the pathogen’s life cycle. 

peter jenkins is an environmental lawyer who worked with lips to advocate for u.s. government action against bd and its more recently discovered variant bsal. jenkins explained the threat bd poses to the amphibian world by drawing a parallel to the pandemic currently being faced by humans saying bd is “like coronavirus for amphibians but worse.” 

lips witnessed the devastation wrought by bd before she figured out what was killing her beloved amphibians. there were no frogs left to study so she would have to get creative to find the source of the decline. she compared the loss of her amphibians in southern costa rica to a previous mass disappearance to the north of her site and made a startling inference. lips hypothesized that the collapse of the amphibian populations was sweeping through central america like a wave. so, in order to gather evidence for the theory, she would have to get out in front of this wave. 

lips moved on to a new location in panama where amphibians were still abundant called fortuna. on her first visit, she cataloged 40 species. when she returned in december of 1996 she encountered her worst fears. the frogs were dying. population numbers were down in many of the area’s streams and many of the frogs she and her team were finding were unhealthy or dead. many even died in the hands of researchers.

this time however lips and her team had bodies to examine. eventually, scientists determined that the frogs were being killed by a microscopic fungus. joyce longcore, an associate research professor at the university of maine, soon discovered the bd fungus while studying a dead specimen from the u.s. national zoo. longcore and her colleagues also found the fungus on a dying frog from australia. when taken together the data showed that bd was decimating amphibian populations globally though more research was obviously needed. 

lips and her team continued that research over the following years. in 2004 they documented the collapse of yet another amphibian population this time in central panama. lips was stuck in the u.s. at the time but her graduate students diligently stepped up their efforts so they could gather as much data as possible before the epidemic wiped out the frogs.

lips said, “it was frustrating to be trapped at school while ‘my’ frogs were dying in panama—after all those years of work and all those transects, i would miss the actual epidemic. but i knew that while my field team documented the devastation, my responsibility was to tell everybody in the larger community what was happening and what it meant.” 

in more recent years lips has shifted her focus from fieldwork to public advocacy. in 2009 she teamed up with the defenders of wildlife to petition the u.s. fish and wildlife service to better regulate the pet trade in order to prevent the spread of bd in the u.s. the usfws ultimately shelved the project after it became clear that bd was already present in the domestic pet market and could not be blocked from the country.

however, a bd variant able to infect salamanders known as bsal has not been found in north america. the urging of lips and other advocates got the usfws to ban the import of 200 salamander species in 2016 to protect america’s salamander species from bsal transmission. the u.s. has more native salamander species than any other nation. lips hopes to spare them the fate of her green tree frogs.

lips is hopeful that the pandemic will bring needed attention to and the plight of amphibians saying: “if we can prevent the next covid we can also save the frogs [and salamanders] at the same time.” in the coronavirus age, she is now championing the concept of “one health:” that human, wildlife, and environmental health are all linked and must be managed collectively.