When people think of Florida, they usually think of alligators.
Hundreds of species of large marine animals live in waters of Florida like the alligator.
The alligator is big and mean, but today we're going meet an animal that's big
and gentle.
I'm talking about the Florida manatee. Manatees are marine mammals and they are huge. Which
is no surprise since they're distance relatives of the elephant, but manatees are
among the most gentle animals on earth.
Hi, I'm Jonathan Bird and welcome to my world!
( ♪ music )
It's hard to understand what is so amazing about manatees until you've been in the
water with one...
...And looked it right in the eye.
Today I'm going swimming with manatees in the backyard of the Sisto family in Crystal
River Florida. The Sistos live on a canal where manatees hang out during the winter.
Manatees don't like the ocean's chilly winter temperatures. The canal, fed by a warm
water spring, is just right.
The canal falls within the Crystal River National Wildlife Refuge in Florida, which protects
manatees.
The sanctuary sets limits on human - manatee contact. People can swim with manatees if
they respect the animals. They must also stay out of the special roped-off areas set aside
for those manatees that don't want to be bothered.
The manatees that like the attention let people get pretty close.
I finally look one in the eye.
What I see is unbelievable.
With the help of a special piece of diving gear, called a rebreather, I am able to watch
a manatee sleep. Because the rebreather produces fewer bubbles and noise than ordinary scuba
gear, my approach doesn't startle the animal and wake it up. The manatee doesn't even
know I'm here. I think it might be snoring. Look at the thing. It's completely zonked
out.
Manatees can stay under water for as long as 20 minutes. So, even during sleep they
must periodically rise to the surface to breathe. They gently float up to take a breath, and
then gently sink back down like they are in a dream the whole time.
The rebreather also helps me get close to a mother and her calf without startling them.
Notice the calf nursing from the back of her mother's flipper. It's one reason scientists
think that manatees and elephants probably evolved from the same ancestor. Elephants
nurse in the region of the mother's armpit too.
The mother and calf seem to communicate, in part, through a series of sounds or vocalizations.
Calves stay with their mother for one to two years before going off on their own.
Fully grown, this calf could be fifteen feet long and weigh three-thousand pounds.
But manatees can't cope very well with all the new people who come to live in Florida
every year. Why?
Well, for one thing, their food supply is disappearing. Over a thousand people move
to Florida every day and they all want to live near the water. So they build houses
near the water and have to build these seawalls to keep the house from falling in.
But problem is the plant manatees can't grow on seawalls. Manatees are sometimes called
sea cows because they only eat plants. In fact, it's the only marine mammal that eats
just plants. Manatees spend eight hours a day feeding, and my consume 200 pounds of
vegetation! As vegetarians, manatees harm no other animals and pose no danger to man.
And here's problem. Seawalls design to keep houses from falling into the water can't
grow the shallow plants the manatees eat. The manatees food supply and habitat it's
are disappearing. And here's another problem with Speed boats. Manatees are slow and boats
hit them.
Manatees have no natural predators here in Florida, and until recently, they've flourished.
Without predators to evade, manatees didn't have to be very fast. In fact, they move so
slowly that algae grows on their backs. I often see fish dining on the algae, which
seems to annoy the manatees.
And so, manatees can't move fast enough to get out of the way of a speedboat. Dozens
of manatees die each year from collisions with boats, or from injuries that set in after
a boat's propeller slices up the animal's back. Most manatees we see have propeller
scars.
Living in speed boat infested waters is like living next to the freeway 24 hours a day,
seven days a week, 365 days a year, for 50 to 60 years. To take a breath, the manatee
has to basically run out in the middle of the freeway and then run back.
Before people and speed boats, manatees had the place to themselves. They breathed a lot
easier.
Here in the sanctuary there's there's a strictly enforced speed limit, but it's
difficult to enforce speed limits everywhere.
WOMAN'S VOICE: One right. There. Right in front of you. There's an animal. Right there.
People come to Florida, in part, to go boating. And they want to go fast, sometimes.
And not everyone's backyard is a safe manatee refuge. Sometimes, manatees get themselves
into trouble.
Like this one, stuck in a storm drain. Sea World is rescuing it.
( crowd cheers )
Injured manatees are often brought back to Sea World, which operates a sort of manatee
hospital.
There's even a pediatric ward. Pistachio was barely a week old when he was orphaned.
Sea World's veterinarians developed a special formula for the calf designed to replicate
its mother's milk.
For adult manatees, sea world uses a special tank with a floor that can be raised and lowered
so that the veterinarians and handlers can easily treat the animals.
Snorkel arrived at Sea World seriously emaciated.
Since her arrival here she has gained weight, but today, they're trying to clear a blockage
in her intestine.
Jessica is in danger of losing her flipper. She's a victim of fishing line wrapped around
her flipper which cut off the circulation. Another man-made threat.
The treatment over, the exhausted manatees are lowered back into their pool. Lunch is
waiting and a bit of a rest. Perhaps someday soon these two animals will be released back
into the wild to live out their natural lives.
Manatees have been around for fifty million years. People have been around for less than
a million years. So they've been here much much longer than us, but in recent years,
they are dying faster than they can reproduce. We need to act quickly and decisively to stop
the loss of manatees and help this species recover. If we don't, the manatee will vanish
forever. It would be a very blue world indeed, without manatees.
( ♪ music )