The Manatee

The american alligator are mainly found in the United States, North Carolina, to Rio Grande in Texas. They eat fish, turtles, various mammals, birds, and other reptiles. The american alligator are mostly found in freshwater, slow and easy rivers, swamps, marshes, and lakes. Their prey is fish, turtles, snakes, and small mammals. Their predators are bobcats and raccoons. Clearly, this is the american alligator's habitat and diet.

"There is proof that the manatees were around for about 60 million years and that they were related to the elephant. It was also learned that they were land animals and that over time they learned to survive in the water".

The Eastern Diamondback rattlesnake lives on the east coast of North America. The snake is commonly found in wooded, sandy areas around fallen logs and brush piles. Even though You can find these snakes in marshes and swamps, it is abnormal to find them in water or near damp areas. But, occasionally these intrepid snakes may venture into salt water, swimming near the Keys on the Florida coast. They are also found in dry pines like woodlands.

Historical levels of the Southern Resident Orca population are currently estimated to have been as high as 200 (Fisheries.noaa.gov, 2015). The population as of 31st December 2015 was calculated at just 84 individuals (Center for Whale Research, 2015). There is limited data on the population before the mid 70’s so it is unknown what the population pattern looked like prior to this. Appendix A shows a graph documenting the population data found by a census started in 1974, as well as modelled data from 1960 to 1974. The graph starts with a low population, possibly explained by the frequent capture of live animals for marine parks (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 2014, p. 3). After this period the graph shows fluctuations in the population, then a steady growth resulting in a peak in 1995, then a sharp decline – almost 20% until 2001. This fast decline is what prompted governments to first list the population a threatened (United States Environmental Agency, 2014). The population has remained stable in the following years but now has an endangered status (Fisheries.noaa.gov, 2015).

Manatees have been protected by the Florida Manatee Sanctuary Act since 1978 (Spivey). This act prohibits annoying, molesting, harassing, or disturbing any manatee to be found in or near the state. It also specifies that anyone who tries to kill, hunt, pursue, or capture a manatee would have serious repercussions. Even with all these laws there is still a growing number of manatee deaths throughout the state. When manatees were put on the endangered species list in 1973 they were also put under the protection of the endangered species organization. This organization has enforced four laws so far to protect manatees from future harm (Swart). This entitles the manatee population to a number of new laws and requirements put on the state of Florida to protect them . For manatees this included new speed zones for boats and different water pollution regulations put into place at all bays where manatees are known to be. These things caused the number of injured manatees to go down for a few years but since then the numbers have slowly climbed back up to where they were before. The rules and regulations put in place by both the state of Florida and the endangered species organization did the trick for a while but the follow through on most of them was gone away causing them to no longer be of any help to the manatee

Many of its marshes, cypresses, and mangroves cover the majority of the wetland and an estimated number of 50 reptile species and 40 mammal species currently residing are either endangered, or worse, threatened for extinction. The Florida Panther, according to the National Park Service, has a successful breeding population; nonetheless, the “primary threats to the remaining population are habitat loss, fragmentation, and degradation” (para. 2). Due to the ongoing urban development, the panther became a well-known endangered human threat. An estimated 80-120 panthers are surviving

have 24-32 molars in the back of their mouths. The front molars are worn away

Cetacean bycatch in fishing industries has been a highly debated topic for decades and is still considered an ongoing problem(NOAA 8). However, when it is looked at in comparison, the problem of bycatch has already been solved as much as is possible while still allowing fishing industries to fish at all. Cetaceans are defined as marine mammals. Bycatch is defined as any marine life that is caught and returned to the sea, whether it is dead or alive(Brooke 2). Therefore, many marine animals that are considered bycatch are not harmed in any way. Including these animals, the national bycatch ratio is still low(Brooke 3). Many actions have already been taken since this has become an issue that has reduced bycatch

This exceptionally charismatic megafauna has become synonymous with Florida along with “snowbirds”, orange juice, and Mickey Mouse but the Florida manatee may not be as permanent as its counterparts. Since being declared as endangered, the Florida manatee, a subspecies of the West Indian manatee, has been at the center of conservation efforts throughout the east coast of the United States. While human involvement has been at the crux of the increasing population, it can be argued that the best way to save this species is by taking humans out of the picture altogether.

Introduction: Paradoxical swim-with programs, modeled as an ecotourism method, are of great interest to conservation biologists. Crystal River, Florida, which includes Kings Bay, is the only place in the United States where swimming with manatees is permitted. This globally advertised tourism attraction draws in well over 100,000 tourists a year.1 These tourists have close interaction with over 500 manatees that winter in Kings Bay (2 km2).2 This number has increased from the 114 manatees using these warm-water springs in 1981-1982, demonstrating the growing importance of Kings Bay as a warm-water site.3 West coast manatees migrate to the Kings Bay area to escape environmental stressors such as water temperature, as manatee fatality occurs

I plan to start my own organization called the manatee protecting crew (MPC) it will be a nonprofit organization. I will start hiring people who are more experience than me in certain fields. My crew with consist of Veterinaries, Naturalists and Scientists. We will start conducting plan like building sanctuaries for injured manatees and calves that have been separated from their mothers. If a calf is separated from its mother for too long it can die.

The manatee does have some natural enemies though to worry about when they are in the water. Most of the time it is the young and the weak that are the most vulnerable to such predators though. They include crocodiles, alligators and sharks. What predators they have to worry about depends on the location where they live.

Imagine a world of chaos. We see things like that all the time in movies, where zombies roam the earth and there are just those few main survivors left. The world is in ruins. If ocean life was to die out, there would be a collapse of civilization as a whole. Just like we see on TV, the world would become a place where no order exists. This would lead to human extinction. The ocean dies, we die along with it, and if sea turtles die, so does the ocean. In simple words, one could say that human life depends on sea turtles. In this speech I will be covering three topics. First, how a sea turtle’s diet benefits marine life and humans, second, how sea turtles provide homes and food for other species, and last, how sea turtles protect beaches from washing away.

Sea otters (Enhydra lutris) are marine mammals capable of spending their entire lives in water. Being carnivorous in nature, they feed on sea urchins, crabs, fishes, mussels and clams. They are referred to as keystone species due to their profound impact on marine ecology. The interaction between sea otters, sea urchins and kelp forests has been studied as a model of the impact of predator-prey interaction on community ecology. Sea otters are keystone predators, whose presence has a far-reaching influence on the marine food web by affecting the population of sea urchins in particular, and kelp forests & other marine organisms in general. There has been a steep decline in sea otter populations due to water pollution and exploitation for

Cetacean bycatch is an ongoing problem in the oceans of the world. Cetaceans are defined as whales, dolphins and porpoises(CBRC 1). Bycatch is “marine mammals that are “captured” but discarded”(Read 2). This happens when fishing industries are fishing for a certain type of marine animal and other marine animals are caught accidentally along with the intended catch. Many times, this leads to the death of the animal that was not meant to be caught, and the animal is tossed back into the ocean. This happens with all kinds of marine life, and it has caused the depletion of many different species. However, this is specifically bad for cetaceans, such as dolphins and whales, because they have such a long lifespan(Brown 2). They also take a very long time to mature(Brown 2). These factors make catching these animals very detrimental to the species as a whole because it takes longer for them to reach an age where they can reproduce(Brown 2). The population of many cetaceans have decreased exponentially. When there is someone watching the nets that cetaceans are accidentally caught in, many times they can be saved. However, there are only select few types of fishing methods that do this, and they are not of the prevalent fishing methods that produce cetacean bycatch. This is a problem because there is a connection between most living animals. If a certain part of the connection is eliminated, it will all fall apart. For example, the relationship between