November is Manatee Awareness Month, so let’s learn more about these creatures and what we can do to help them!

There are commonly 3 types of manatees, and these are the West African, West Indian, and Amazonian manatees. They are typically found in the Caribbean Sea, the Gulf of Mexico, the Amazon basin, and West Africa, inhabiting the marshy and coastal areas. They are herbivores, a migratory species, and slow moving due to their size— at 3–5 miles per hour. Manatees are very solitary, meaning they rarely travel in groups or form bonds, and spend 50% of the day sleeping. During breeding season, which happens as the weather turns warmer, a group of male manatees travel with a female. When the female gives birth, the calf remains with its mother for 1–2 years. Reproduction rates for manatees are low: they are able to have babies at 5 years old and have calves every 2–5 years, on average.

It is partially due to their low reproductive rates that the population of manatees is lessening. As their population shrinks due to human and environmental factors, there are less manatees to produce offspring.
All 3 species of manatee are considered endangered by the World Conservation Unit. Though they are a species that lives long lives, up to 60 years, it is uncommon these days to see a manatee that is older than 30. Scientists can tell how old a manatee is based on the rings of their ear bones. 
Scientists contribute the common causes for manatee loss to several factors. The first of these are collisions with watercrafts: manatees are curious and slow-moving, which is why it is not uncommon for them to collide with ships and boats and receive injuries from the hull or propellers of watercrafts. This nature can also cause them to get trapped in flood gates, which are large gates that control the flow of water, or nets used for fishing. Their diet has been altered by the effects of climate change. As the weather and our bodies of water change with the effects of climate change, it can be harder for them to find food, or some of their food can become infected with algal blooms that are harmful to the nervous systems of animals. 

Manatee Awareness Month started in Florida in 2005, as manatees are a prominent animal in the state— many conservation efforts are homegrown in Florida. One of the most prominent conservation groups is the Save the Manatees Club which was created by former Florida Governor Bob Graham and the singer Jimmy Buffet. Several problems with the manatee’s food supply, including harmful algal blooms and starvation have been solved on Florida coasts: when a plant essential to the diet of local manatees was dying, 3,000 lbs of lettuce was distributed to the animals daily. In the 1970s, the number of manatees in the US were in the hundreds. In 2016, 6,250 manatees were reported to be living in Florida Springs. The state has employed laws restricting potentially harmful boating activities and made it illegal to harm manatees. 
The US also has many rehabilitation centers for manatees. They take in manatees who have sustained injuries with boats, have suffered from starvation, or those who have been rescued from other harmful situations and heals them before releasing them. 

It is just as important to learn about how the manatees are being harmed as it is to learn how they are being helped. These conservation efforts started locally, addressing problems that happen in our very own backyard, where people who care came up with their own solutions. Finding solutions to problems in our own community can be as simple and as fun as hand-feeding manatees with lettuce!

A common arc in movies and TV shows is the “training arc”. The hero suffers a major loss or defeat, undergoes rigorous training, and comes back even stronger than before to face and conquer their enemy. One real-life example of this “training arc” is the northern elephant seal (Mirounga angustirostris). 

Northern elephant seals are humongous— the males can weigh up to 4,400 lbs and can be up to 13 feet long! These seals primarily feed on squid, fishes, rays, and sharks by diving down to depths of 2,500 feet. During these foraging dives, they can hold their breath from 20 to 30 minutes. Most of the year, northern elephant seals spend their time in the open ocean; they return to island and the coastline along North America’s west coast to breed from December to March.  

In the 1800s, the northern elephant seals were hunted to the brink of extinction for their blubber. In fact, these seals were thought to be extinct, or completely gone with no individuals alive, by the 1890s. Initially unnoticed by humans, a small population survived on Guadalupe Island, Mexico. Scientists estimate that at one point there were only 25 northern elephant seals alive on the planet! Thankfully, through protective laws passed by the Mexican and US governments, like the Marine Mammal Protection Act in 1972, the northern elephant seal made a massive comeback. Current population estimates number over 225,000! After such a comeback, it’s hard to believe anything could happen to harm their population again.

Recent research suggests that although elephant seals have returned in number, their species is more vulnerable due to a lack of genetic diversity. When the elephant seal population was reduced down to a few individuals, they experienced a population bottleneck. This bottleneck effect was due to the small population size— there was a decrease in the variation and size of the species’ “gene pool”, or the species’ genetic material. Although this bottleneck did help eliminate some harmful, or “deleterious” gene alleles, it also got rid of many beneficial ones too. As a result, all the existing elephant seals are very genetically similar, which may make it more difficult for them to survive environmental changes.

As human cities, neighborhoods, and roads expand, more wildlife populations are becoming fragmented and isolated. The northern elephant seal is a great species for us to study how population bottlenecks impact species in the long-run and hopefully understand how to help wildlife across the globe that are experiencing similar bottlenecks.