The Florida Fish and Wildlife Service has reported a preliminary manatee count for 2016 of 6,250 individuals statewide: 3,292 on Florida's east coast and 2,958 on the west. This is up slightly from last year's count of 6,063 (and undoubtedly represents an underestimate of total manatee populations in the state, as some individuals will not be detected and counted). Conditions were excellent for the aerial survey this year, and 2015 and 2016 are the first years since aerial surveys began that the population count has topped 6,000. We hope we'll see it continue to grow in 2017 and beyond.

Learn more about FWC's manatee related research here, or read the press release and check out photos from the 2016 aerial survey here.

It's a great day for US desert species and landscapes, as the White House has announced the designation of three new national monuments in California, covering nearly 1.8 million acres. While we here at Field School don't spend much time in the desert, we're still thrilled about these much-needed protections for unique and vulnerable landscapes. This brings the total count of lands and waters Obama has protected to 265 million acres--more than any previous administration.

If you're curious, the president gets his ability to do this from the 1906 Antiquities Act, which allows him to create national monuments on federal land to protect "objects of historic and scientific interest"--though his right to do so is currently contested (the Senate recently defeated attempts by Republican lawmakers to curtail presidential power under the Antiquities Act).

Mojave Trails National Monument protects 1.6 million acres, including more than 350,000 acres of previously congressionally-designated Wilderness. This monument contains landscapes ranging from mountains to sand dunes, including ancient lava flows, fossil beds, and areas of rare desert grasslands. In addition to historic resources--like native American trade routes and WWII era military training camps--Mojave Trails is also the site of considerable geological, ecological, and climatological research.

Sand to Snow National Monument covers 154,000 acres (just over 100,000 of which were already designated wilderness). This national monument protects one of the most biodiverse areas in southern California, containing 240 species of birds and twelve threatened and endangered wildlife species. Sand to Snow also contains sacred archaeological and cultural sites, including an estimated 1,700 Native American petroglyphs. 

Castle Mountains National Monument: This 20,920-acre monument in the Mojave Desert will serve as a critical connection between mountain ranges, protecting water resources, plants, and wildlife such as golden eagles, bighorn sheep, mountain lions and bobcats.

These designations come in part as the result of the efforts of Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif), who has been working for a decade to find a way to protect lands not covered by the 1994 California Desert Protection Act. That bill, which she sponsored, protected 7.6 million acres of California lands, led to the foundation of Death Valley and Joshua Tree National Parks, and created the Mojave National Preserve.

You can read the fact sheet released by the White House here, or news coverage in the LA Times and the Desert Sun. You can even visit the website of the Campaign for the California Desert, which is currently optimized to send Thank You notes to President Obama and Senator Feinstein.

You can check out the paper in the journal Behavioral Processes, read a more thorough summary of findings at Science Daily, or learn a bit more about the awesome red wolf from the IUCN Redlist.