Repeat manatee zone violator sentenced for killing sea cow
BY JIM WAYMER • FLORIDA TODAY • February 2, 2011
A Merritt Island man, cited repeatedly for violating manatee protection speed zones in Brevard and Volusia counties was sentenced in federal court today for killing a manatee while driving his boat in violation of a manatee protection zone last summer.
Joseph Miata Jr., 62, was criminally charged by the US Attorney's Office, Orlando Division, in October for killing a manatee and violating the Endangered Species Act.
Miata pleaded guilty and was sentenced today in federal court in Orlando to one-year federal probation.
US Magistrate Judge David Baker also required Miata to make a $600 donation to a wildlife conservation group.
And Miata was also ordered to forfeit to the government the boat he was operating when he killed the manatee.
The charges stem back to July 11, 2010, when the state's Wildlife Alert Hotline received a call reporting that a boat speeding through a manatee zone in Sykes Creek struck and killed a manatee. The female animal had been lactating with a 10-month-old calf by her side.
State wildlife officers stopped a boat operated by Miata that matched the description of the speeding vessel. At first, they couldn't find the dead manatee.
The next day, an officer found the carcass near where it was struck, but the orphaned calf couldn't be found.
According to witnesses, Miata was operating his boat at full plane through the slow-speed zone when he struck the manatee. The boat's propeller struck the manatee's head.
Federal agents served a search warrant on Miata's Merritt Island residence on July 22, seizing his boat as evidence.
Miata had been previously cited by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission less than two months earlier, for speeding through a manatee zone and by USFWS officers for the same violation on a previous occasion.
"Mr. Miata is a habitual, severe offender which prompted us to work with our federal partners for prosecution," Capt. Steve Wayne, FWC's area supervisor, said in a news release. "The federal penalties are much more severe than the state's and we felt a violation of this magnitude deserved to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law."
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