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I LOVE manatees, I think they are really cute. You may not agree, but you are entitled to your own opinions.
Manatees are endangered and need to be preotected. From where i live (Ohio) it's hard to pretect them, as there aren't
too many manatees around, let alone rivers and oceans. Even though I'm so far away from where manatees live, I still help
them. How you ask? well I'll tell you. I am in a club, or organization, where every season I donate a certain amount of money
to this organization. The money is put toward protecting and preserving what is left of these poor helpless animals. The donation
is called "adopting a manatee" which is real cute.
Fact: Ê There have been 4,042 manatee mortalities documented in Florida from 1974 2000.Ê Of those, 988 were attributed
to watercraft collisions, 168 were attributed to flood gates or canal locks, 108 were other human-related, 852 were perinatal
(dependent calf), 143 were natural cold stress, and 532 were other natural.Ê For the remaining 1251 carcasses no cause of
death was identified: in the majority of cases (704) the carcass was too decomposed to determine a cause of death. Ê The perinatal/dependent
calf category is also not a cause of death, rather it identifies that the manatee died around the time of birth, the manatee
was less than 150 cm (5 ft.) In total length and was determined to have not died due to human-related causes.(6)Ê
Scientists break down the causes of manatee deaths into six different categories:
* Watercraft collisions
* Flood gate or canal lock (crushed and/or drowned)
* Other human-related (deaths caused from monofilament line, litter, poaching, vandalism,
culverts or other human-made structures)
* Perinatal (dependent calves under 4.9 feet [150 cm])
* Other natural (mortalities caused by natural circumstances such as cold stress or disease)
* Undetermined (the manatee is too badly decomposed to determine cause of death,
the necropsy finding is inclusive, or the manatee carcass was reported and verified, but not recovered)
Here's a link to a table of
"Total Manatee Mortality In Florida By Year and Cause 1976-2001"
http://www.savethemanatee.org/mortality2001.htm
Here's a link to Save The Manatee Club,
which is the organization to which I belong.
http://www.savethemanatee.org/
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