West Indian manatee
The plump, docile, grass-munching sea cow made its way onto the endangered species list in 1973, after increasingly common boat collisions—exacerbated by habitat loss—caused its numbers to drop to a few hundred in its native Florida.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service bumped it down to ‘threatened’ status in 2017 after it rebounded to about 6,600 individuals Florida, says The Washington Post. Environmentalists, however, worry that this change in status will work against manatees, pointing out that boat strikes and habitat loss persist.
