THE MANATEE

Very few animals have captured the imagination of the Caribbean people as the manatee (Trichechus manatus). Its great size and strength, secretive behavior, aquatic life and semihuman appearance with two frontal breasts, all have turn the species into a key character of the folklore and mythology of indigenous groups inhabiting the region. Their look also called the attention of Christopher Columbus, who wrote in his sea diary that the "mermaids" were not as pretty as it was said. This legend gives origin to the name of the mammalian group where manatees belong : Sirenia.

All the Sirenians, including manatees, are herbivorous aquatic mammals with frontal limbs turned into flippers. Presently there are three species of manatees : the West Indian, which is the one found in Central America, the Amazonian and West African. Besides manatees, the Sirenian group has another representative, known as dugong, which has much more marine habits and inhabits tropical waters in the Indian and Pacific oceans from Madagascar to Australia. Steller’s sea-cow was gigantic dugong measuring up to eight meters and which was exterminated in twenty years from its scientific discovery due to human greed and lack of wisdom.

Adult manatees measure around 3.5 m and weight about 100 kg. By weight and size it is the largest continental mammal in Latin America. These animals show an outstanding set of traits coming from their aquatic way of life. Their eyes are small, they lack canine and incisive teeth, while their molars move forward and regrow continuously, which is a unique case in mammals. Manatees have very heavy bones to facilitate immersion, and they lack any marrow in ribs and flippers. Lungs are placed on a dorsal position, acting like buoys, and they are included in different lung cavities that isolate each lung.

Manatees inhabit rivers, estuaries and coastal areas that are not too far away from freshwater sources. In spite of their large size, manatees tend to be elusive especially in countries where they have been hunted for centuries—and they can disappear easily or swim at fast speed if threatened. They feed on floating, submerged or emergent vegetation, and they can eat over 80 kg of plants each day. Manatees are long-living animals with a very low reproductive rate. Some animals live up to 60 years and adult females usually give birth to a single calf every three years after 12 to 14 months of pregnancy.

Due to this low reproductive rate, manatees cannot recover from high mortality. Sadly, since humans came to the American continent, these gentle animals have been hunted for their meat, hides and some traditional medical uses, and their numbers have decreased through the centuries. Recently, other factors have come to threaten manatee’s survival : boat traffic, habitat destruction (i.e. deforestation and wetland destruction), pesticides, and gillnetting. Presently, the species is threatened with extinction in almost all the countries where it is found.

LAND OF THE MANATEE

The West Indian manatee inhabits one of the Earth’s richest and most beautiful regions: the Caribbean Sea basin. This regions includes the Central American countries (Belice, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama), the Antilles (Cuba, Hispaniola, Jamaica y Puerto Rico), Florida, Mexico, Venezuela and Colombia. The Central American Caribbean serves as a bridge between fauna and flora from the Northern and Southern America. Thus, this region harbors an exceptionally rich biodiversity. Besides its biological riches, the area gives home to several indigenous groups like the Miskito, Rama, Sumos, and Maya Indians, plus the garifona and Creole people.

Map of the "Land of manatee"

Watercourses and coastal areas inhabited by manatees are widely known as wetlands. Wetlands are landscapes that are temporary or permanently covered by water, though open-sea areas are excluded from this group. Wetlands are some of the Earth’s richest and most useful ecosystems, and the Caribbean basin has some of the most important wetland complexes in the world. Some of the wetlands found within this region are : coral reefs, freshwater lagoons, rivers and creeks, brackish estuaries and lagoons, mangroves, and palm swamps. These wetlands produce uncountable benefits to local communities like firewood, drinking water, aquatic transportation, defense against hurricanes and tropical storms, and tourism. Besides this, wetlands are the main or only habitat for thousands of animal and plant species. That is why is so important to conserve those wetlands that serve as the manatee’s habitat.

Lowland rainforests usually surround and protect Caribbean wetlands. These forests also provide huge benefits to local people living close to them like firewood, bushmeat, medicinal herbs, and water. Probably the most important benefit provided by these forests is protection against hurricanes and tropical storms. During the last years these natural phenomena have increased their destructive effect in the region due to deforestation patterns that have left many coastal villages and river basins unprotected, favoring landslides and massive floods and destroying hundreds of households and human lives.

Manatee habitat

The Caribbean wetlands and lowland rainforests serve as refuge for many animals that are as threatened and awesome as manatees. We can highlight among them : the jaguar, America’s largest cat ; the harpy eagle, one the Earth’s largest and most powerful raptors, which feeds on monkeys and sloths ; the white-lipped peccary, one the jaguar’s main preys ; the giant anteater, one of Central America rarest mammals ; the American crocodile ; the tapir, a large mammals, which is only outweighed by the manatee in the area ; and the spectacular green and scarlet macaws. All these animals are threatened by forest and wetland destruction, and unsustainable hunting or poaching.