Project helps introduce West Indies manatees back into wild
With help from coastal communities, biologists at Aquatis non-governmental organization pick up the stranded manatees.
The Manatí project, which monitors rescue and recovery of marine mammals on the coast of Ceará, has helped introduce five West Indian manatees (Trichechus manatus) back into the wild over six years.
According to biologist-project coordinator Ana Carolina Meirelles, Ceará is the state with the highest stranding rates for the threatened species.
As Meirelles explained, manatees look for estuaries (transitional zones where rivers flow into the sea) as quiet and safe places to breed. But as most estuaries in Ceará and northwestern Rio Grande do Norte silt up, they become too shallow for the females to get in, and the calves end up being born in the open sea. Unable to keep up with their mothers, they eventually run aground. Under normal conditions, a manatee calf stays around its mother for about two–three years.
With help from coastal communities, biologists at Aquatis non-governmental organization pick up the stranded manatees. “We carry out a comprehensive educational and training initiative in the communities to guide them on how to deal with stranded manatees. It's usually easier to handle newborn calves that they come across,” the biologist said.
The rescue service operates 24 hours a day, with staff permanently on call. The project has provided training for 6,800 people, including students at local and state-run schools, teachers, and fishing communities.
In 2012, the Manatee project opened its own rehabilitation center in Ceará, built with support from Petrobras's Environmental Program. Before that, the manatees had to be taken to the neighboring state of Pernambuco.
Rehabilitation
Nine manatees are currently at the rehabilitation stage—seven of them at the Center for the Rehabilitation of Marine Mammals in Ceará, and two in Pernambuco.
In spite of the conservancy efforts of several organizations, West Indies manatees are still endangered.
Under Manatí Project, the animals spend four years in rehabilitation, since each individual responds to weaning in a different way. They also go through a transition stage to readapt to the wild, according to Meirelles.
Beginning in 2016, a natural-environment facility will be built based on the structure of a fish corral, for the purpose of transitioning the manatees currently at the rehabilitation center. There, they will learn to live amidst ocean currents, tides, natural noises, and vessels, and several other conditions not found in the rehabilitation tanks. The facility will be set up in a cove on the east coast of Ceará.
The latest study, carried out in 2013 by researchers at the Federal University of Pernambuco in collaboration with the Aquatic Mammals Foundation, identified a population of a thousand West Indies manatees, in a range that extends from the coast of Alagoas all the way up to Piauí. In Ceará and Rio Grande do Norte, the manatee population is estimated at 190.
In spite of the conservancy efforts of several organizations, West Indies manatees are still endangered. Although they are no longer hunted in Northeast Brazil, where the rehabilitation centers are located, subsistence hunting persists in the North region.
Besides the slow recovery and breeding cycles, other issues threaten the species, including habitat destruction, accidental hauling as bycatch in fishnets, and boat collision.
Translated by Mayra Borges
Fonte: Project helps introduce West Indies manatees back into wild
