Featured Image Credit: Fox 13 News Staff.
By: Sarah Sharkey
Fishing line that is tossed into the ocean is a huge problem for marine animals everywhere. Although
you may think that a small piece of line could only affect small creatures, that is just not true. Recently,
two manatees were found entangled in fishing line in the Florida Keys.
Both incidents occurred this summer, one in Marathon and one in Key Largo. Both manatees were taken
care of by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC), Miami Seaquarium and the
Dolphin Research Center. The team worked together to rescue the manatees, disentangle them and
release them back into the ocean quickly.
Luckily, these manatees were spotted quickly and helped immediately. Many other animals are not as
lucky.
FWC is urging people to recycle their monofilament line to prevent future incidents like this one. Their
Facebook page asked people to “please do your part to prevent entanglements such as these from
occurring by recycling all monofilament fishing line into a monofilament recycling bin.” These recycling
bins are set up across the state at many popular fishing sites. Usually, they look like a large white PVC
pipe attached to a post, it will indicate that it is a recycling station. Please put you monofilament in
there, FWC will recycle it for you to prevent future events like this one.
Learn more from the source.