{"id":277562,"date":"2026-05-20T03:07:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T03:07:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/277562\/"},"modified":"2026-05-20T03:07:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T03:07:13","slug":"protecting-people-and-manatees-on-northeast-florida-waters-ahead-of-memorial-day-weekend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/277562\/","title":{"rendered":"Protecting people and manatees on Northeast Florida waters ahead of Memorial Day weekend"},"content":{"rendered":"

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 This week is National Safe Boating Week<\/a>, which comes just ahead of Memorial Day, when many people across our area get out on the water.\u2002<\/p>\n

The Jacksonville Sheriff\u2019s Office took Action News Jax for a ride along the St. Johns River. <\/p>\n

>>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<<<\/a><\/p>\n

There are about 28,000 boats registered in Duval County. According to the latest Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission stats, in 2024 there were 16 boating accidents resulting in seven injuries and two fatalities.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur state continues to rank No. 1 in the nation in both recreational boating, accidents and boating-related deaths,\u201d Jacksonville Mayor Donna Deegan said.<\/p>\n

FWC also reports in more than half of all accidents, victims were not wearing personal safety flotation devices<\/p>\n

\u201cLife jackets save lives,\u201d an official from the FWC Dept of Law Enforcement said.<\/p>\n

[SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/a>] <\/p>\n

As dolphins followed us along our journey, Deegan raised the alarm about one marine animal in particular. <\/p>\n

\u201cAs boating activity increases during the summer months, we ask all operators to observe posted manatee zones,\u201d Deegan said. <\/p>\n

The agency reported that up to a quarter of manatee deaths are caused by some sort of watercraft. <\/p>\n

[DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/a>]<\/p>\n

The city said key factors to help prevent such accidents include speed zone regulations.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo reinforce the importance of safe boating, we will be enforcing the slow speed zones, the manatee protection zones, and other applicable laws,\u201d Kevin Kilcoin of the JSO Marine Unit said.<\/p>\n

Officials also called for the establishment of manatee sanctuaries, and habitats, and boater education programs to increase water safety for humans and animals. <\/p>\n

Click here<\/a> to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, click here<\/a> to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and click here<\/a> to stream Action News Jax live.<\/p>\n

Action News Jax Top Stories<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 This week is National Safe Boating Week, which comes just ahead of Memorial Day, when…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":277563,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[344,54742,347,28,348,116,351,118,117,1415,75415,116657,349,118508,118507,350,5903,346,345],"class_list":["post-277562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-action-news-jax","tag-boating-safety","tag-cbs47","tag-florida","tag-fox30","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-fl","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-jacksonville-sheriffs-office","tag-memorial-day","tag-national-safe-boating-week","tag-northeast-florida","tag-safe-boating","tag-safe-boating-week","tag-southeast-georgia","tag-st-johns-river","tag-wfox","tag-wjax"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=277562"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277562\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/277563"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=277562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=277562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=277562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}