Manatees – Keeping Safe

Manatees – Keeping them Safe
Ambience: manatee vocalizations, underwater

We’re on Florida’s West Coast about 80 miles north of Tampa at Homosassa State Park. It’s the site of a hot spring and a refuge for manatees, an endangered marine mammal. I’m Jim Metzner and this is the Pulse of the Planet. We’re listening to the manatee’s vocalizations, recorded underwater with a hydrophone.

Rose: Manatees make little squeaks and squeals. That’s the way that especially the mother’s and calves communicate. So if you listen carefully you can really hear those; its telling you manatees are being manatees.

Pat Rose is an aquatic biologist and the executive director of the Save the Manatee Club.

Rose: Manatees need to stay warm in the wintertime and if they don’t, they actually can die from that stress that’s created from the cold. Literally we call that cold stress.
Being that they have a low metabolic rate, low amounts of fat to protect them, manatees must find warm water when it gets cold in the winter. It’s also a big factor in how man’s shaping that future for manatees. If springs like Homosassa springs continue to flow, they’re going to have habitat in the winter. If they’re pumped down like they’re doing right now – there’s problems in Florida from over-pumping our aquifer, reducing our spring flows and those habitats may not be available in the future unless we’re very careful.
Manatees are really important, not only in terms of saving them as an individual species, they represent an umbrella species. They bring along with it protections for the entire aquatic ecosystem. If we’re able to protect manatees, we’re going to have to protect the aquatic ecosystems. If we protect the aquatic ecosystem, we’re going to protect the manatees, the fisheries, all those things we enjoy as people.

Our thanks to the USGS’s Sirenia Project for the manatee recordings. Pulse of the Planet is made possible in part by the National Science Foundation and Virginia Tech, inventing the future through a hands-on approach to education and research.

Manatees - Keeping Safe

The over-pumping of Florida's aquifers may endanger the manatee's future.
Air Date:04/11/2022
Scientist:
Transcript:

Manatees - Keeping them Safe Ambience: manatee vocalizations, underwater We're on Florida's West Coast about 80 miles north of Tampa at Homosassa State Park. It's the site of a hot spring and a refuge for manatees, an endangered marine mammal. I'm Jim Metzner and this is the Pulse of the Planet. We're listening to the manatee's vocalizations, recorded underwater with a hydrophone. Rose: Manatees make little squeaks and squeals. That's the way that especially the mother's and calves communicate. So if you listen carefully you can really hear those; its telling you manatees are being manatees. Pat Rose is an aquatic biologist and the executive director of the Save the Manatee Club. Rose: Manatees need to stay warm in the wintertime and if they don't, they actually can die from that stress that's created from the cold. Literally we call that cold stress. Being that they have a low metabolic rate, low amounts of fat to protect them, manatees must find warm water when it gets cold in the winter. It's also a big factor in how man's shaping that future for manatees. If springs like Homosassa springs continue to flow, they're going to have habitat in the winter. If they're pumped down like they're doing right now - there's problems in Florida from over-pumping our aquifer, reducing our spring flows and those habitats may not be available in the future unless we're very careful. Manatees are really important, not only in terms of saving them as an individual species, they represent an umbrella species. They bring along with it protections for the entire aquatic ecosystem. If we're able to protect manatees, we're going to have to protect the aquatic ecosystems. If we protect the aquatic ecosystem, we're going to protect the manatees, the fisheries, all those things we enjoy as people. Our thanks to the USGS's Sirenia Project for the manatee recordings. Pulse of the Planet is made possible in part by the National Science Foundation and Virginia Tech, inventing the future through a hands-on approach to education and research.