Propeller Guards and Manatee Safety
The Caribbean Manatee had a sweet life three hundred years ago. Back then, Blackbeard and the other pirates bandied about in noisy sailing ships like sloops, brigantines and schooners. A manatee could survive a bump from one of these vessels. And the sailors were mostly harmless, except for the lackeys who dreamt of falling in love with a mermaid.
Then someone invented the outboard motor and everything changed for our manatee friends. When a slow swimming mammal collides with the propeller of a cruising speed boat, it usually results in major trauma for the lumbering mammal. So manatees now swim in troubled waters.
It didn’t exactly require a scientific breakthrough for engineers to fit a cage around the propeller of an outboard motor. Propeller guards have been on the market for years. Our state and federal governments should take better advantage of this important safety innovation.
SPIN, an advocacy group dedicated to preventing propeller strikes, has petitioned the Coast Guard, which regulates recreational boats and equipment. The Coast Guard has requested public comment. In the meantime, that manatee surfacing underneath your boat might actually be a young swimmer or a disoriented diver.
The most recent Coast Guard reports indicate that approximately 30 to 45 people were killed annually and approximately 185 to 265 were injured per year from 2001 to 2004 from propeller strike accidents. Since the Coast Guard doesn’t count unreported boating accidents, the actual numbers could be much higher.
Congress should consider requiring some type of propeller guard on all new boats. It should offer property tax incentives. At the very least a more robust public information campaign would seem to be in order. When we have the technology to improve public safety we should expect our leaders to make use of it.
manatees, pirates, mermaids, propeller strikes, propeller guards, boat propellers, outboard motors, Coast Guard, boat safety, Congress, SPIN
November 23rd, 2007 at 7:10 pm
So right! We require seat belts in our cars, we should require propeller guards on our recreational vehicles.
November 25th, 2007 at 5:42 pm
[...] and the Animal Kingdom by Bob Betzen I wonder if dolphins hate drift nets as much as manatees hate unguarded boat propellers. By now every other species on the planet must despise at least one human invention. It’s [...]
July 16th, 2010 at 10:44 am
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