Native Floridian Craig Pittman is an author and environmental reporter. After 31 years at the Tampa Bay Times, he now writes a weekly column for the Florida Phoenix and is a co-host of the popular podcast “Welcome to Florida.” His six nonfiction books about Florida include The New York Times bestseller Oh, Florida: How America’s Weirdest State Influences the Rest of the Country and Cat Tale: The Wild, Weird Battle to Save the Florida Panther. The quiet manatee has long been a flashpoint of environmental debates. It is Florida’s most famous endangered species and its most controversial. Manatees appear on hundreds of license plates, attract hordes of tourists, and expose the uneasy relationships between science and the law and freedom and responsibility. The battle over their protection has evolved into a war. Pittman is the first environmental writer to explore the complex history, culture, and science of the controversies and concerns surrounding this remarkable creature. In Manatee Insanity: Inside the War over Florida’s Most Famous Endangered Species (Florida History and Culture), he follows Florida’s gentle giants through time and space, detailing interactions with various human actors, from Jacques-Yves Cousteau and Jeb Bush to Jimmy Buffett.
