o never do things that I would notwant others to do to me, and in this case I highly doubt that these harassers would wantthat type of behavior imposed on them.Efforts to protect the West Indian manatees have been underway since 1893, whenthe lawmakers in Florida passed the state’s first manatee-conservation law in order toprotect these delicate creatures. Today, manatees are protected by the Florida ManateeSanctuary Act of 1978, which labels Florida as a manatee haven and permits theestablishment and enforcements of boat-speed regulations in manatee habitats (Fichtner). Manatees are also protected by federal laws in Florida that prohibit hunting, capturing,killing, or harassing these animals. These laws include the Marine Mammal ProtectionAct of 1972 and the Endangered Species Act of 1973 (Bertram). The official authoritiesare not the only ones that can do something to protect these fragile mermaid. Save theManatee Club was formed by ordinary people like us in order to conserve the manatees. Started by a single person in 1981, this non-profit organization is now 20,000 membersrich. It seems like there has been numerous actions taken by the authorities to protectthis diminishing species, but why are there still so many manatees dying each year? Ittook me a while to come up with two hypotheses to help me answer that question, and Ithink that I am on the right track. When doing research about what has been done toprotect manatees I came across a number of laws that have been passed, but not in onepiece of information have I found anything on what kind of punishments are enforced on people who break these laws. It’s easy to put things on paper and say that they are laws,but it’s a totally different to actually impose these laws. My other hypothesis is thatpeople act in a boomerang effect. That is when “people react to laws by behaving in theopposite direction from that desired by those trying to sociall...
