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Tomorrow is the deadline for the public to comment on the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission’s plans to downgrade the status of the manatee from “endangered” to “threatened”. Kip Frohlich of the agency says the differences between the classifications are subtle.

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“Our species definitions for endangered is a species that’s in imminent risk of extinction. Imminent. Now, threatened is actually described as… it has a high risk of extinction over time. So that’s the difference. They’re both at risk of extinction, but the manatee… the biologists that studied the manatee’s life history have found that it’s not in imminent danger of extinction.”

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More than 600 people have commented on the change so far. There is no timetable for adopting the change.