More manatee can be saved if they are farmed where warm water is discharged. One way that capitalists can farm manatee is by fencing them in where warm water is discharged (another method is by using “homing” tags to own and track manatee as private property).
If “sea cows” were farmed like other cows then people could eat them, they wouldn’t be endangered, and the many “manatee festivals” in our state could then provide culinary delights from their namesakes, as does the strawberry festival, tomato festival, rib festivals, seafood festivals, et cetera.
Manatee were used in history for meat, bone, hides and fat. manatee were relied upon among ancient Indians and manatee hides were made into leather shoes, cords and shields, and the ivory-like bones were thought to have medicinal value. Florida Indians hunted manatee to supplement to their diet and may have sold excess meat to the Spanish.
In the seventeenth century, shiploads of dried manatee meat were shipped from the Guianas to feed sugar plantation laborers in the Caribbean. Pioneers arriving in the nineteenth century shot manatee for meat, oil and hides, and poaching was common in parts of Florida during the Depression and World War II. Cowpens Key in the Florida Keys is thought to be so named because manatee were once penned in a small cove there as a food supply [from The West Indian Manatee in Florida, Copyright 1989, Florida Power & Lights Company].
Despite the foregoing, actual farming of manatee has either not been tried, or has been outlawed. Environmentalists are endangering manatee with misguided, anti-capitalistic statism.
The lack of property rights in sea cows and in so much of Florida’s waterways makes it difficult, if not impossible, to farm manatee.
Socialism is killing manatee. A more Libertarian approach will save the manatee by bringing it closer to everyone’s heart (deep inside everyone’s stomach).
Private property rights and farming keep chicken, cattle and many popular forms of restaurant fish off endangered species lists. Tuna is the “chicken of the sea” and the manatee is the “cow of the sea” and their cow-like qualities make manatee ideal for farming.
Farming will produce manatee meat of greater quality and flavor, and insure that manatee never face extinction.
Everyone should look forward to the day when there will be real manatee festivals, when manatee are included in all the seafood festivals, and when manatee will be as popular and abundant as other farmed seafood, meats, fruits and vegetables.
As the bumper sticker says “I love manatee.Manatee tastes just like filet mignon.”
