Gentle Giants

In shallow salty waters and rivers, a large, slow-moving creature swims and grazes. It is called a manatee. A shy and very gentle herbivore, it is completely harmless.

For almost 50 million years, manatees have grazed the earth’s tropical lagoons, rivers and bays. In Florida alone, there were once thousands of manatees. But now there are less than 3,000. They are in danger of becoming extinct.

Varooom! All too often the people who like to go boating in these same waters ignore the Caution signs. Manatees get cut by the sharp propellers and many die from these run-ins.

The warm, shallow waters where manatees live are disappearing or becoming polluted. This loss of habitat is another reason manatees are endangered.

Standards Link: Life Science: Living things depend on one another and the environment for survival; the physical conditions of the environment can change and these changes can be detrimental.