What do you get when you cross a walrus and a potato?
Manatees (sometimes called sea cows) are large aquatic mammals, weighing 1,000 to 2,200 lbs (500 to 1000 kg). They are herbivores, and spend most of their time grazing in the shallow, marshy coastal areas and rivers of the Caribbean Sea, the Gulf of Mexico, the Amazon basin, and West Africa. They spend half of their day sleeping in the water, regularly surfacing for air.
Although manatees have no natural predators, all three species of manatees are listed as vulnerable to extinction. The major threats to manatees are humans and their trash. Manatees occasionally ingest fishing gear (hooks, metal weights, etc.) while feeding. Fishing line and string is especially harmful to the creatures because it can get clogged in the animals’ digestive system and it will slowly kill them. Manatees can also be crushed in water control structures (navigation locks, flood gates, etc.), drown in pipes and culverts, and are occasionally killed from entanglement in fishing gear, primarily crab pot float lines.
Manatees typically inhabit warm, shallow, estuaries. In the past manatees would migrate south to warmer waters in the winter. However, today, they often congregate near power plants, which warm the waters. Some have become so reliant on this source of unnatural heat they have stopped migrating. Unfortunately, as some of the power plants closed the manatees still did not migrate and did not fare well in the cold, winter waters. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is trying to find ways to heat the water for these “lazy” manatees.
Manatees are curious, non-aggressive, and slow moving. In general they have a benign relationship with humans. In Guyana, the main water treatment plant has four manatees that keep storage canals clear of weeds. Their slow moving, curious nature, coupled with dense coastal development, has led to a large number of manatee injuries from motorboat propellers. Watercraft-related collisions account for 25% to 30% of all manatee deaths in Florida.
When Christopher Columbus arrived in the “New World”, manatee hunting was an established trade for the indigenous Caribbean people. Native Americans hunted manatees for meat and to make war shields, canoes, and shoes.
Although hunting manatees was banned in 1893, poaching of the animals continues to the present day.
