Manatees of Florida
23 November 2014 | Ft. Lauderdale Downtown Cooley Docks
Elizabeth (Internet photo)
If there was ever an effort to save an endangered animal, it is most valiant in these parts. Every few yards along the canals and rivers, at the beginning of inlets and along walkways onshore are signs about the Manatees. They are a protected species and you would have to be in another orbit to miss that fact. We have seen Manatees in SC and Puerto Rico, but never got a really good look until we landed here. And by good look I mean that sort of "up close and personal" encounter that leaves you feeling excited and yearning for more. Ed, Luna and I were getting off the boat for a walk along the Riverwalk path when we looked down and there swimming very close to the surface along the bow of Skylark was an enormous "sea cow". He or she was at least 12' and reminded us of a rhinoceros. Magnificent. We found two Internet photos to show you what they look at because we didn't get a picture on our camera.
Here's some info from the Internet about this interesting mammal.
"Manatees (family Trichechidae, genus Trichechus) are large, fully aquatic, mostly herbivorous marine mammals sometimes known as sea cows. There are three accepted living species of Trichechidae, representing three of the four living species in the order Sirenia: the Amazonian manatee (Trichechus inunguis), the West Indian manatee (Trichechus manatus), and the West African manatee (Trichechus senegalensis). They measure up to 13 feet (4.0 m) long, weigh as much as 1,300 pounds (590 kg),[1] and have paddle-like flippers. The name manatí comes from the Taíno, a pre-Columbian people of the Caribbean, meaning "breast".[2]
Manatees (Trichechus) are aquatic mammals that have a large, streamlined body, flipper-like front limbs, and a rounded, horizontal flipper-tail. Although they may resemble whales and dolphins in some ways, they are in fact more closely related to elephants."