Legal History
A brief history of manatee protection.
Manatees have been protected as far back as 1764. British Colonial Records indicated "His Majesty (proposed) that an Instruction should be given to the Governor of the Provence of East Florida to restrain him from granting to any person whatsoever, without His Majesty’s particular Orders and directions, those parts of the Coast of the said Province frequented by the Animals called the Manati or Sea Cow, where they have their Echouries (estuaries) or Landing Places."1 The first state statute protecting the manatee was enacted in 1893 (Ch. 4208.94) and by 1904 a $500 fine and or 6 months imprisonment was assessed against anyone molesting a manatee.2
More recent protections for the manatee primarily stem from the following Federal laws: the National Environmental Policy Act of (NEPA), which helps protect the manatee by forcing the Army Corps of Engineers to conduct an Environmental Assessment (EA) or Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) if Governmental permitting activities have the potential to impact manatee habitat; the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972 (MMPA); and the Endangered Species Act of 1973 (ESA). Additional protections for the manatee are afforded by the Clean Water Act of 1977 (CWA) which requires power plants that discharge warm water to get National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permits.3
| 1 | Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission,Manatee Time Line (2002) at http://floridaconservation.org/psm/manatee/Timeline/Timeline.htm. |
| 2 | Id. |
| 3 | U.S. Fish and Wildlife Serv., supra note 3, at 56. |