Number of Powerboats Registered vs. Number of Manatees Killed from 1977 to 1990

Hypothesis

If there are 460,000 powerboats registered and 21 manatees killed then it is most likely that the number o manatees killed will increase substantially because of the increase in the number of registered powerboats.

There is a strong straight line pattern between the manatee deaths compared to the number of powerboats registered from 1977 to 1990 which suggests that the death toll will continue to rise with more registered powerboats.  My R value is .969 which is significantly greater than .532 which comes from the degrees of freedom chart suggesting correlation and accuracy. The statistical evidence from the data table and the comparative scatter plot indicates that the death toll is correlated with the number of registered powerboats and will increase over the given number of years to come.

Qualitative Observations

• The trend line represents a gradual increase over the course of 23 years.
• The number of Manatees killed drastically increases from 13 in 1977 to 55 in 1990 which indicates a continuing increase in deaths if it remains on this course.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I fail to reject my hypothesis as it was supported by the results spanning over several decades compared to the amount of manatee deaths over that time lapse. My R value was .969 which indicates that the data presented is statically accurate. The degrees of freedom were .532 which the data has been delineated to fit around this number. The more number of powerboats on the waterways will result in more manatee deaths over the course of time. As the rate gradually increases already, supported by the scatter plot, there will soon be fewer manatees as a result of this problem. Other studies have been conducted to support these claims. “There have been at least 60 manatee deaths from watercraft collisions this year” (Collier 2009). This report comes from a study conducted every year by this society to monitor manatee deaths. Another finding made by Dr. Bruce Ackerman suggests that watercrafts are the single most lethal weapon against manatees. “The single greatest identifiable cause of death was collisions with watercraft.”(Dr. Bruce Ackerman 2008). His findings indicate that at the rate of manatee deaths due to watercrafts the population will slowly diminish.