In Florida, Brazil, and Senegal, three scientists are working very hard to save the manatee. Manatees are docile, large sea mammals who are eaten in some parts of the world, feared in
others, and adored in still others. But human encroachment, disease, environmental hazards, and being hunted, among many other issues, are causing their numbers to decline.
Manatees are, in fact, an endangered species. John Reynolds, a manatee expert at Mote Marine Laboratory in Sarasota, Florida and chairman of the United States Marine Mammal
Commission for the past two decades, is among the scientists trying to figure out how to save the manatee, and move it off the endangered species list. It isn't as simple as just
counting the numbers of manatees in the wild and seeing if the number goes up or down. There are countless factors that go into giving an animal a designation (and every known
species in the world has a designation). But in the Amazon, for example, manatees are very difficult to spot, and are hunted for food. How do you get an accurate picture of what life
is like for a manatee in Brazil, where Dr. Fernando Rosas studies the creature, when you might not even see one in the wild for months or years? And in Senegal and other parts of
Western Africa, where young Lucy Keith is working hard to put together a network of people who share information about manatees, people fear them and hunt them. Conservation is
not an easy goal for these three scientists, but their love and passion for the manatee drives them each day.
In The Manatee Scientists, John Reynolds does an aerial count of manatees in Florida and gives readers a basic overview of manatee biology and the new science being
used to help with their conservation status; Lucy Keith is among the first to see bones of older manatees that were being kept by a legendary manatee hunter in Angola and has
an adventurous weekend rescuing manatees trapped in a dam in Senegal; and Fernando Rosas takes his assistants and the author on an Amazonian riverboat trip, looking
for a young manatees he released back into the wild, with mixed and emotional results. Scientists thousands of miles apart, sharing science and information with a common
goal -- The Manatee Scientists is a perfect addition to our Scientists in the Field Series.
