West Indian Manatee Facts

		Physical Description: The manatee is a large aquatic mammal reaching lengths of over thirteen feet and weighing over three thousand pounds. They have a gray-brown color and seal like body with a tail that tapers into a paddle. Two flippers are on their upper half, each one with three to four nails per flipper. Its leathery skin has sparse coarse hair, similar to its cousin the elephant. Wrinkles cover the face and head. On their snouts, there are whiskers and nostrils that close making an airtight seal. Calves are visually the same. At birth infants measure three to four feet long and weight between sixty and seventy pounds. Senses: Manatee are not very fast moving or agile. They are very gentle and unfortunately have no defense system which, while making them harmless, add too the struggle to save them. With their tiny eyes, they can differentiate colors although depth perception may be limited. The lack of external earlobes does not hinder their ability to hear at all. It actually is one of the finer scenes of the manatee. The lungs of this giant mammal stretch the entire length of its body. Breathing as often as every thirty seconds or as long as twenty minutes, manatee usually only hold their breath for three to five minutes. They communicate, mainly between calf and cow, with squeals and squeaks when they play or get frightened. Lifestyle: For such a large animal, it is hard to believe veggies are all they dine on. Grazing along the floors of canals, they consume ten to fifteen percent of their body weight daily. Manatee’s favorite thing to munch on is sea grass. Slow-moving rivers, saltwater bays, estuaries and other coastal areas can be prime locations to locate a manatee. One can look any where from Brazil to South America and Central America. In the US, Manatees swim as far west as Louisiana and Alabama, and while staying mainly in Florida, they have visited Virginia and the Carolinas as well. Reproduction: One of the reasons that it is so hard to replenish the species is because they are very slow to sexually maturity. Female can take anywhere from five to nine years, while male are a little slower taking six to nine years to mature. Once they conceive a calf, the chance of twins is very rare and the gestation period is thirteen months. The calf is very dependent on the mother for up to two years, so it will be at least that long until another baby comes along. On average, new calves appear every two or three years. Mortality: When left up to nature, manatees can live to the ripe old age of sixty. They have no predators or natural enemies. With odds like that, how are their numbers dwindling to a mere eighteen hundred left in the United States? Unfortunately, it is mostly human related. One of the reasons the government took action was because between 1974 and 1991 twenty-five percent of manatee casualties were from watercraft collisions alone and eighty-five percent was the fault of the human race. Things like canal locks and flood control methods, entanglement in fishing and crabbing lines have crushed and drowned manatees. The largest, and most serious threat, is it’s lost of habitat. Luckily, hunting them is illegal or they would quickly meet the same fate as their extinct cousin, the Steller sea cow. It was lost in 1768.

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