This holiday season, give a 10-foot-long, 1000-pound package of love. You can't really gift-wrap a manatee or send it by mail, but you can adopt a manatee for someone you know and help ensure the survival of this endangered species.
The manatee is a large, aquatic mammal that can be found in the shallow, slow-moving rivers, estuaries, saltwater bays, canals, and coastal areas of Florida [Ed. note: A 10-foot-long, 1700-pound male manatee, estimated at 30-50 years old, was recently rescued from the cooling waters of the Chesapeake Bay, near the Eastern Shore of Maryland; the State of Maryland, U.S. Government, and the Save the Manatee Club joined efforts and successfully released him near Cape Canaveral, Florida]. They are gentle and slow-moving animals and spend most of their time grazing for submerged plants and basking in warm waters. A manatee adoption is a rare and original gift because it is a way to get to know one of these unique animals -- up close and personal.
Twenty-three manatees who live in their natural environment and winter at Blue Spring State Park in Orange City, Florida, have been chosen for Save the Manatee Club's (SMC) Adopt-A-Manatee program. For twenty dollars ($20), "parents" receive an adoption certificate, an underwater photo of "their" manatee, the manatee's life history, and a subscription to the SMC Newsletter.
Boomer, Brutus, Lucille and Paddy Doyle, Flash, Success, and Howie -- these are names of just some of the adoptees in SMC's Adopt-A-Manatee program. Each manatee has distinctive characteristics -- Boomer is curious, Brutus is huge (1,800 pounds!), Lucille is now a grandmother, and Paddy Doyle is feisty. Flash is shy, Success just had her third calf, and Howie, well, Howie loves to upset the research canoe!
Each newsletter contains an update on the adoptees, written by Ranger Wayne Hartley, of Blue Spring State Park, who says that his favorite part of the job is "manatees, anything to do with them." "I like greeting them all in the fall when they come in, seeing them swim by," says Ranger Hartley. "When they go out for the season, I wonder who's going to come back, what are they going to look like?" Wayne always has stories to tell about the manatees -- who's expecting a new calf, who is "hanging" out with whom, which manatee has made the most visits, and who has new scars (from being hit by boat propellers). A manatee adoption is a way to learn about manatees and the environment.
Funds from the Adopt-A-Manatee program go toward helping to save manatees from extinction. This is done through public awareness activities such as State and national public service announcements and "Caution - Manatee Area" signs distributed free to Florida residents living on the water; free education materials for school classes all across the United States; funds given to manatee research and manatee rescue and rehabilitation efforts; and lobbying on the local, State, and Federal levels to ensure better protection for manatees and their habitat.
Currently, there are approximately 1,800 manatees left in the United States, and they are listed as endangered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Many manatee mortalities are human-related, with watercraft collisions responsible for the largest number of human-related deaths. Other causes of human-related manatee mortalities include ingestion of fish hooks, litter, and monofilament line, entanglement in crab trap lines, and vandalism. Loss of habitat from coastal development is associated with all of these forms of mortality.
Save the Manatee Club is a national, nonprofit organization established in 1981 by former Florida Governor Bob Graham (now a U.S. Senator) and singer-environmentalist Jimmy Buffett (co-chairman of SMC). For more information on manatees, the Adopt-A--Manatee program, or to receive a copy of the SMC gift catalog, call Save the Manatee Club at 1-800-432-JOIN, or write to SMC at 500 N. Maitland Ave., Maitland, FL 32751.
Go to:
Contents, Animal Welfare Information Center
Newsletter
Top of Document
The Animal Welfare Information Center
U.S. Department of Agriculture
Agricultural Research Service
National Agricultural Library
10301 Baltimore Ave.
Beltsville, MD 20705-2351
Phone: (301) 504-6212
FAX: (301) 504-7125
E-mail: awic@nal.usda.gov
