Teach your toddler the animal alphabet or help your preschool child learn the ABCs with the M is for Manatee T-Shirts, mugs, stickers, and more!
Although manatees have few natural predators (sharks, crocodiles, killer whales and alligators), all three species of manatee are listed by the World Conservation Union as vulnerable to extinction. The current main threat to manatees in the United States is being struck with boats or slashed with propellers. Sometimes manatees can live through strikes, and up to 50+ deep slashes and permanent scars have been observed on some manatees off the Florida coast. However, the wounds are often fatal, and the lungs may even pop out through the chest cavity. It is illegal under federal and Florida law to cause the manatees injury or harm.
According to marine mammal veterinarians, "The severity of mutilations for some of these individuals can be astounding - including long term survivors with completely severed tails, major tail mutilations, and multiple disfiguring dorsal lacerations. These injuries not only cause gruesome wounds, but may also impact population processes by reducing calf production (and survival) in wounded females - observations also speak to the likely pain and suffering endured". In an example, they cited one case study of a small calf "with a severe dorsal mutilation trailing a decomposing piece of dermis and muscle as it continued to accompany and nurse from its mother...by age 2 its dorsum was grossly deformed and included a large protruding rib fragment visible." These veterinarians go on to state that "the overwhelming documentation of gruesome wounding of manatees leaves no room for denial. Minimization of this injury is explicit in the Recovery Plan, several state statutes, and federal laws, and implicit in our society's ethical and moral standards."
Manatees occasionally ingest fishing gear (hooks, metal weights, etc.) while feeding. These foreign materials do not seem to harm manatees, except for monofilament line or string. This can clog the animal's digestive system and slowly kill the animal.
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 are also vulnerable to red tides—blooms of algae which leach oxygen from the water.
Manatees were commonly hunted for their meat by natives of the Caribbean, although this is much less common today.
On June 8, 2006, The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission voted to reclassify the manatee on Florida's list, to a "threatened" status in that state. While none of the state laws protecting manatees have changed, many wildlife conservationists are not pleased with the removal decision. Manatees remain classified as "endangered" at the federal level.
While humans are allowed to swim with manatees in one area of Florida, there have been numerous charges of people harassing and disturbing the manatees in various ways, in addition to the concern about repeated motorboat strikes causing the maiming, disfiguring, and death of manatees all across the Florida coast, and this privilege of swimming with wild manatees may be soon repealed.
