CHH1

Here are some other facts from the United Nations to think about:

The Manatee Population Numbers are changing!

From the United Nations Caribbean Environmental Report # 35 http://fwie.fw.vt.edu/WWW/esis/lists/e054004.htm

"Long-distance movements of about 600 km by individuals in Florida have been documented (61), and there are numerous cases of extralimital sightings suggesting movements well over 600 km (32,33,11)."

Do your own research. You be the judge. This information is all on the internet.

There is only one West Indian species of manatees. The Florida manatee is a SUB Species

It's not the endangeres Sub-Species Act it's the Endangered Species Act

The West Indian manatee is divided into two subspecies: the Florida manatee (Trichechus manatus latirostris) and the Antillean manatee (Trichechus manatus manatus). The distinction between the two is based on an extensive quantitative analysis of cranial (skull) characteristics, and the subspecies are not distinguishable externally. http://www.sirenia.org/

SO WHERE ARE THE MANATEES?

http://www.cep.unep.org/pubs/techreports/tr35en/ct35nscu.htm

What is the U.S. doing in Belize?

The Belize Manatee Project http://www.wildtracks.org/ http://www.wildtracks.org/ is a cooperative effort of Wildlife Trust, the Florida Marine Research Institute,USA Fish and Wildlife Service's Sirenia Project, the Belize Coastal Zone Management Authority, and others.

According to the website the West Indian manatees, Trichechus manatus, inhabit rivers, lagoons, estuaries, and coastal areas of tropical and subtropical regions of the northwest Atlantic Ocean from southeastern USA to Brazil. A large manatee population exists in Brazil. The US Fish and Wildlife Service has been studying manatees in Brazil since 1997. Their report says "The purpose of the study is to provide information to the Belizian authorities that will assist with the development of manatee conservation and management actions. Belize is one of the most important manatee sites in the world. The research is also being used to develop practices that will ensure that ecotourism based on manatee viewing does not negatively impact this important population of manatees in Brazil."

READ THAT AGAIN! "The research is also being used to develop practices that will ensure that ecotourism based on manatee viewing does not negatively impact this important population of manatees in Brazil."

We know manatees have gone from Crystal River to the Dry Tortugas. That's a fact.

..........I think scientists know something they are not telling us.

The area shown with question marks is shorter than many documented manatee tracks. Look at the map. I believe manatees are migrating back and forth from Florida to Mexico, Brazil and into the Carribbean.

They have tracked manatees from Florida to the Dry Tortugas, to Lousiana to Georgia to North Carolina, to Maryland and to the Bahamas. There is a confirmed manatee population in Cuba, on the northern coast...and at the western end.

"Extensive areas of shallow, protected coastal areas and many rivers on both the northern and southern coasts of Cuba constitute favorable manatee habitat (Lefebvre <i>et al.</i> 1989). Ecological changes in Cuba's rivers (contamination, damming, and deforestation along the margins, all affecting plant production) may have caused manatees to shift from a riverine (Cuni 1918) to more coastal marine habitat, where they occur most often along protected coasts with extensive shallow areas (Estrada and Ferrer 1987). A comprehensive national survey (excluding the area between Jaimanitas and Punta Hicacos) involving 301 fishermen produced indications of continuous manatee presence along the coast. Twelve are the areas where manatees were sighted more frequently: Ensenada de Guadiana-Puerto Esperanza, Bahía de Cárdenas, Carahatas-Caibarién, Turiguanó, Nuevitas-Puerto Padre, Gibara-Cayo Saetía (northern coast), Siguanea and Punta del Este (Isla de la Juventud), Ensenada de la Broa, Casilda-Tunas de Zaza, Golfo de Ana María, Golfo de Guacanayabo-Ensenada de Mora, Baitiquirí (southern coast) (Estrada 1993 and Ferrer 1993). 58% of interviewees reported seeing a manatee in the 12 months prior to survey, and the same percentage thought that manatee numbers have been increasing in the past 10 years; only 11% considered manatees "rare" in Cuba.

Movements of up to 600 km have been documented (Rathbun et al. 1983b), with males ranging over wider areas than females (Bengtson 1981). Similar movements might allow exchange between manatee populations in Belize (Bengtson and Magor 1979, O'Shea and Salisbury 1991), Mexico (Colmenero et al. 1990, Benjamin Morales pers. comm.), and possibly Honduras http://www.cep.unep.org/pubs/techreports/tr35en/chapter1.html

So we have U.S. doccumented tracked manatees going from Crystal River to the Dry Tortugas (maybe 150 miles or more) and then it's less than 90 miles to the next manatee population in Cuba, and then it's another 90 miles across the Yucatan Chanel to Mexico...the very part of Mexico where the great concentrations are (Bahia de Chetumal)

And then in the Mexico report it says: Preliminary data on spatial movements of manatees in Bahia de Chetumal (Colmenero and Zárate 1990, Zárate 1993) and knowledge of manatee movements in Florida (Rathbun <i>et al.</i> 1983b) support the idea that the population crosses the political border to neighboring

Belize. And in Belize we have FMRI and the US Fish and Wildlife Serrvice and the Save the Manatee Club with a big manatee research project http://www.wesave.org/manatee

Remember: "The Belizean Manatee Project is a cooperative effort of Wildlife Trust, the Florida Marine Research Institute, USA Fish and Wildlife Service's Sirenia Project, the Belize Coastal Zone Management Authority, and others. " that's Save the Manatee Club working down there. So I say the population counts is intentionally understated. The populations are intermingling No wonderthe scientists don't want to do specific pathology tests on dead manatees. No wonder there are so many unpublished reports cited.

ARE THEY STILL EATING MANATEES IN CUBA?

Yes they are, and they still eat manatees in many Caribbean countries.

According to the Wildlife Preservation Trust: " Docility, delicious flesh and low reproductive capacity make manatees today one of the most threatened of aquatic mammals. http://www.cep.unep.org/pubs/techreports/tr35en/ct35nscu.htm

The U.N. report says: "The ranges of the two subspecies may overlap on the coast of Texas; however, there is no confirming evidence. Swift currents and open water in the Florida Strait appear to be effective barriers preventing the movement of manatees between the Greater Antilles and Florida (Domning and Hayek 1986).

But we also know that is not true. Thgere are manatees at Andros Island in the Bahamas. Two of them

Here is a recent tracking report we received: This means manatees CAN and DO cross the Gulf Stream

"Florida Manatee Now Resident In The Bahamas. - In January 2000, both the Bahamas National Trust and the Save the Manatee Club received reports of a manatee at Bullocks Harbor, Great Harbour Cay, Bahamas. Sightings of this rather tame, small adult female continued almost daily as she returned to drink fresh water from hoses in the marina. Using photographs of her distinctive scar patterns, we were able to determine that the manatee is the same as the one routinely seen at the Atlantic Undersea Testing and Evaluation Center (AUTEC) in Andros for a majority of 1999. Amazingly, photo-identification analysis using the Manatee Individual Photo-identification System reveals that this manatee over-wintered in the Homosassa River, near Crystal River on the west coast of Florida, in 1993 and 1994! She was a calf when photographed with her mother in the winter of 1993. She was photographed again as an independent juvenile in the winter of 1994. The photo match was confirmed by scar patterns, mutilations in the tail, and even wrinkle patterns on the face"

Again from the U.N. Caribbean Environmental Report # 35: A study of tissues from 59 manatees collected from throughout Florida found little genic variability among geographic regions (McClenaghan and O'Shea 1988). It seems likely, therefore, that there is occasional movement of some animals between the two coasts that has yet to be documented, that some interbreeding occurs at the southern tip of Florida or in Lake Okeechobee, or that these events occurred very recently

Surveys from past years have yielded the following results:

January 23-24, 1991 - 1,268

February 17-18, 1991 - 1,465

January 17-18, 1992 - 1,856

January 21-22, 1995 - 1,443

February 6-7, 1995 - 1,822

January 9-10, 1996 - 2,274

February 18-19, 1996 - 2,639

January 19-20, 1997-2,229

February 13, 1997-1,709

January 29-30,1998-2,022

January 6,1999-1,873

February 23, 1999 - 2,034

March 6, 1999 - 2,353

January 16-17, 2000 - 1,629

January 27, 2000 - 2,222

January 5-6, 2001 - 3276

Source: http://www.savethemanatee.org/faq.htm

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