Foundation members have been carrying out manatee conservation and ecology research in Costa Rica and Nicaragua since 1996.

COSTA RICA

Between 1996 and 1998 Ignacio Jiménez assessed the conservation status of the West Indian manatee in Costa Rica (Evaluación del estado de conservación del manatí en Costa Rica). These surveys identified a wider distribution of the species than previously reported in other studies. Now we know that manatees are found in two distinct subpopulations. The largest extension of appropriate habitat and highest manatee numbers are found in Northeastern Costa Rica, while a few individuals are still found in the Southeastern corner of the country connected to another manatee population in neighboring Panama. Through these studies, we know that — though in better shape than previously thought — Costa Rican manatees are hanging on a precarious balance threaten by motorboat traffic, residual poaching, gillnetting, and pesticide use in neighboring agricultural plantations. Such studies provided baseline information to write the Costa Rica’s Action Plan for Manatee Conservation (Plan de Acción para la Conservación del Manatí en Costa Rica).

Manatee survey

A dead manatee was found inside Tortuguero National Park in 2000. This was the first dead manatee seen in years and it allowed us to carry out the first manatee necropsy in Costa Rica. During this procedure we found dorsal scars made by an old encounter with a propeller from a motorboat. Collision with the hulk of a motorboat traveling at a fast speed was identified as the manatee’s most probable cause of death.

NICARAGUA

Manatee hunter in Nicaragua

Between 1998 and 2000 we carried out an assessment of the conservation status of the species in neighboring Nicaragua (Evaluación de la situación de la especie en el vecino país de Nicaragua). Thus, we determined that Nicaragua holds one of the largest extensions of suitable habitat for manatees in the Caribbean. Several hundred manatees may still inhabit Nicaraguan waters, where they are arguably suffering the heaviest poaching pressure in the entire region. This overlap of plentiful habitat used by large groups of manatees with significant poaching encouraged biologist Carlos Espinoza, another Foundation’s member, to start in 2001 a M.Sc thesis that would address the cultural and economic role of manatee hunting for indigenous Miskito Indians. The study results would be available in 2003.

While we carried out manatee research we also assisted other wildlife studies in manatee areas. Such studies were : an assessment of bushmeat outtake and consumption in the San Juan del Norte Wildlife Refuge, and a census of the two Crocodylia species in all Caribbean Nicaragua.

Manatee butchering in Nicaragua