Defenders of Wildlife and the Center for Biological Diversity have notified the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service they intend to sue the agency for failing to finalize critical habitat protections for Florida and Antillean manatees.

A required 60-day notice of intent to sue was sent to Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum, Brian Nesvik, director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Mike Oetker, regional director, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Southeast Regional Office, Gianfranco Basili, state program supervisor, Southeast Regional Office, Florida Ecological Services Office, Edwin Muñiz, Field Office Supervisor, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Caribbean Ecological Services Field Office.

“Manatees can’t recover without safe and protected places to feed, shelter and raise their young, so the Fish and Wildlife Service needs to act,” said Ragan Whitlock, a staff attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. “We won’t let manatee habitat fall by the wayside even as the Trump administration tries to destroy wildlife protections and abandon its obligations under the Endangered Species Act.”

A release from the Center said the final designation is overdue by more than a year, despite threats to the species' recovery becoming increasingly dire. Critical habitat designations are necessary to conserve and protect ecosystems relied upon by endangered and threatened species.

The Florida manatee’s critical habitat designation has remained unchanged since 1976, despite the USF&WS acknowledging in 2008 that an update was needed. To date, the Antillean manatee has no designated critical habitat. Manatees need natural warm-water habitat and nearby foraging grounds to survive but both resources are becoming scarcer, primarily driven by a warming climate and rapid development in Florida.

Both manatees are a subspecies of the West Indian manatee, and both are managed by wildlife agencies:

• Florida manatee (T. m. latirostris): Found along the southeastern U.S. coast and inland rivers, migrating to warm-water springs or power plant discharge zones in the winter.
  
• Antillean manatee (T. m. manatus): Found throughout parts of Central America, the Caribbean, and northern South America down to Brazil.
  

In the last 20 years manatees have experienced six unusual mortality events resulting in a significant loss of the population. These events were largely a result of habitat loss.

“All creatures need safe, healthy habitats to find food, shelter and migrate,” said Victoria Molyneaux, staff attorney at Defenders of Wildlife. “But for manatees, life-saving habitat protections are long overdue; we’re holding the Fish and Wildlife Service accountable to ensure this iconic species has the best chance at long-term recovery.”

“The greatest long-term threats to manatees are loss and degradation of habitat, especially essential habitat features like warm-water refuge and seagrass,” said Elizabeth Neville, director of environmental law and policy at Save the Manatee Club. “Modernizing 50-year-old critical habitat designations is essential to ensuring manatees can recover and thrive for the next 50 years and beyond.”

A 2024 proposal from the Service responded to these increased threats by modernizing habitat designations and bringing significant benefit to the species — including nearly 1 million new acres of critical habitat in Florida and almost 80,000 acres of critical habitat in Puerto Rico. Finalizing these designations will give manatees the best shot at long-term survival. Recent regulatory rollbacks by the Trump administration to eliminate habitat protections in the Endangered Species Act make these designations especially urgent.

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