National Geographic April 2013, Part 2

History’s Backyard, by Adam Goodheart, photographs by Michael Melford

First, I was kind of surprised to find that “backyard” spellchecks. Upon further research (and contemplation) I realized that I’ve generally seen noun as two words, but the adjective as one. So it should spellcheck, but it definitely looks like it should be “Back Yard” in this instance. I keep expecting it to be History’s Backyard Something (barbecue? garden?)

Anyway, the “backyard” in question is the Brandywine River in Delaware. The article goes into some of the historical events that took place along river. As this issue went to press, the government was contemplating including an area including the Brandywine River in the National Park Service. They did eventually do just that. Originally, it was made First State National Monument, then in 2015, it became First State National Historical Park, the first national park in Delaware.

When Push Comes to Shove, by Mel White, photographs by Paul Nicklen

When Push Comes to Shove is about conflict over manatees in Kings Bay, Florida. When this issue was written, over 600 manatees would spend the winter in the bay, and the manatees are a huge draw for tourists and drive quite a bit of the local economy. You see, the nearby town of Crystal River is the only place that allowed people to get into the water with the manatees.

The conflict is that the government, which has an interest in preserving biodiversity (which means preserving the manatees in particular) for future generations, wanted to enforce speed limits on boats in the area to protect the manatees.  Ideally, they would have liked to make Kings Bay off-limits to swimming with the manatees entirely.

I have been unable to determine what, if anything, has changed about this situation in the last three years. I am thinking, though, that a happy medium would be to have licensed manatee tour operators. If visitors who are allowed to swim with the manatees are required to go through a tour operator, then the tour operator would be required to limit swimmers to those that they can supervise (and thus keep from harming the manatees) successfully. Manatee Visitor Supervisor could become a new growth job in the region.