The Manatee: An Endangered Water Doofus

Adopting endangered animals is well fun. It’s an action that’s totally overlooked when you’re a kid at Sea World and your nan has just bought you some leaflets and a soft toy version of the beast whose screaming eyes you’ve just gazed into. But there’s something intrinsically human about caring for other beings. Destroying other life forms is an equally human trait too, if a little primal. Not that there’s a clear distinction, mind.

I adopted a Manatee once but I’ve moved and changed identity a quectillion (made up number meaning loads) times since then and lost contact with Manray. What the flip are Manatees though? Massive cuddly sea oxen? Durex puppies of the deep? Real-life Studio Ghibli manifestations? Water Labradors!

“Hpim0279” by Chris Muenzer – Flickr. Licensed under CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

Whatever, they’re one of our many aquatic friends. They weigh twice as much as a vending machine, swim as fast/slow as a human cruising on a bicycle and there are only 5000 of these big buggers left. 5000! Theses days, predation eludes them. I suppose there are so few Manatees now that the ones existing are looked after by the same humans that give information about them to people like us.

“Manatee at Sea World Orlando Mar 10” by Ahodges7 – Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

There aren’t many more interesting things to say about Manatees really. They’re just a bunch of squidgy lummoxes that have fallen pray to sport hunters and natural selection. They’re actually quite crap and have wiped themselves out by being rather pointless.

I still want one to be my mate though!