Manatee

The first time you see a wild sea cow or Florida manatee, you may not believe your eyes. This unusual animal, a relative of elephant, seems to be a huge, grey balloon floating about underwater. Where its front legs should be, here are broad flippers instead. The manatee uses them to paddle itself about in the warm Florida water. Where the hind legs should be there is nothing at all. The manatee has a broad flat tail that helps it keep its balance.

It seems to have no neck, just a strange face like a blob of putty with wide leathery lips. Its eyes are small. For a while the manatee lingers with flippers and tail hanging down motionless. Very slowly, it eases to the top and its snout breaks through the surface. It exhales then takes deep breath. It does another time or two and begins drifting away.

When full-grown, the manatee may be 12 feet long from tail to nose. A big manatee may weigh more than half a ton. They live only in water where their weight s supported. On land they would be completely helpless. When winters bring cold snaps to Florida, the manatees move out of the bays and rivers into warm springs. On these seasonal migrations they cruise at about four miles an hour. But when frightened they can shift into high gear and speed up to perhaps 15 miles an hour.

They do not build their numbers very rapidly. The cow manatee has only one calf at a time and then only one every two years or more. They are from four to six years old when they begin to breed. No one knows how old they live to be in the wild, but captive animals have survived as long as 25 years.

After the mature manatee mate, the female doesn't have her calf for more than a year. It is born under water. But manatees cannot stay beneath the surface the way fish can. They're warm blooded mammals and mammals and they must have air to breathe. The mother soon works her way under her new born youngster and gently lifts it on her back until its nose is out of water. There resting ontop of its other, the calf gets its first breath of air. For the first week of its life, the calf's head must be lifted out of water every three or four minutes or it will drawn

Like other mammals the female manatee raises her young one on milk. It does not even have to come out of water to eat. Instead it nurses underwater. People do not have to be afraid of the manatee s as much as the manatee needs to worry about people. These aquatic beasts are shy giants. They eat nothing but water hyacinths and other underwater plants. They eat hundreds of pounds of them a day.

Only in recent times have begun to really study the manatee. They probably would not study them much even now except that these animals are coming closer to extinction. This is true everywhere they are found, including the Caribbean, South America and Africa. How many manatees lived the coast of Florida when Columbus made his first voyage? There is no of knowing, but there must have been thousands of them. Today there may be 1200 remaining. There may even be fewer than that.

Boat drivers often come upon a manatee without even seeing the big animal. There is bump and jolt. The whirling propeller cuts into the hide and flesh of the animal. It often causes fatal injuries to it. Another enemy of the manatee is the ordinary everyday vandal who senselessly shots or injures these animals. In addition some manatees are probably still killed by poachers for their meat. But perhaps the biggest threat is destruction of the manatee habitat. People take more space in Florida every year. They need more room for their homes and boats. And the water becomes more polluted.

Meanwhile the manatee can take final refuge in Everglades National Park and some other places along the Florida coasts. If it is lucky in the years ahead, the manatee may be harvesting weeds from the shallow warm waters for along time. But people must work harder to save environment and protect it from boat propellers.

By Edward Ombaka Adeny