Deep in silence, as if under a spell, children watch intently as Bacuri, a young Amazonian manatee, glides around a small plastic pool. When he surfaces for air, some of them exchange wide smiles. The soft rustle of rainforest leaves punctuated by bird song adds to the magic of the moment.<\/p>\n
The children from riverside communities traveled for hours by boat just to meet Bacuri at the Ferreira Penna Scientific Base of the Emilio Goeldi Museum, Brazil\u2019s oldest research institute in the Amazon.<\/p>\n
Despite their endangered status, manatees are still hunted and their meat illegally sold, and they are increasingly threatened by\u00a0climate change.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Amazonian manatee is the region\u2019s largest mammal, but is rarely seen, much less up close. AP<\/p>\n
Environmentalists hope that by engaging local communities, Bacuri and others like him will be spared.<\/p>\n
The Amazonian manatee is the region\u2019s largest mammal but is rarely seen, much less up close. The reasons for this are twofold: The manatee has acute hearing and will vanish into the murky water at the slightest sound, and its population has dwindled after being overhunted for hundreds of years, mostly for its tough hides that were exported to Europe and Central America.<\/p>\n
To help the manatee population recover, several institutions are rescuing orphaned manatee calves, rehabilitating them, and reintroducing them to the wild.<\/p>\n
Bacuri\u2019s story<\/p>\n
Bacuri weighed just 22 pounds \u2014 a fraction of the more than 900 pounds of an adult manatee \u2014 when he was rescued and taken to the federally protected Caxiuana National Forest.<\/p>\n
Bacuri, a rescued manatee, breathes while swimming in a pool at the Emilio Goeldi Museum\u2019s scientific station in the Caxiuana National Forest in Par\u00e1 state, Brazil. AP<\/p>\n
He was named after the local community that found him. Two years and several thousand milk bottles later, Bacuri has grown to about 130 pounds.<\/p>\n
Three institutions are responsible for his care. The Goeldi Museum provides facilities and educates nearby communities. The federal Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation assigns two staffers for 15-day shifts to feed Bacuri three bottles of milk a day, as well as chopped beets and carrots, and clean the pool every 48 hours. <\/p>\n
The nonprofit Instituto Bicho d\u2019Agua \u2014 meaning institute of water animals in Portuguese \u2014 oversees veterinary care, dietary planning, and caregiver training.<\/p>\n
Deep in silence, as if under a spell, children watch intently as Bacuri, a young Amazonian manatee, glides around a small plastic pool. AP<\/p>\n
During their visit, the children learn that female manatees are pregnant for about a year, then nurse their young for two more years, feeding them from nipples behind their front flippers \u2014 the manatee equivalent of armpits. This long reproductive cycle is one reason the manatee population has not recovered from the commercial hunting that persisted until the mid-20th century.<\/p>\n
They also learn that the species is endangered and that they are the ones who must protect it.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou are the main guardians,\u201d biologist Tatyanna Mari\u00facha, head of the Ferreira Penna scientific base, tells the children, who spend the rest of the day drawing and making Play-Doh models of Bacuri.<\/p>\n
Local knowledge is key<\/p>\n
With its auditorium, dormitories, observation towers, cafeteria, and laboratories, the research station, two hours by speedboat from Portel, the nearest city, stands in stark contrast to nearby communities comprising clusters of wooden houses on stilts where families rely on cassava farming, fishing, and harvesting a\u00e7a\u00ed berries. School field trips and community outreach aim to narrow the gap.<\/p>\n
\u201cCaxiuana is their home,\u201d Mari\u00facha told The Associated Press. \u201cWe can\u2019t just come here and do things without their consent.\u201d<\/p>\n
Local knowledge will play a key role when Bacuri is finally released. He is the only manatee calf under care at Caxiuana. Once he has fully transitioned to a plant-based diet, he\u2019ll spend time in a river enclosure before his release. That site will be selected based on where residents say wild manatees feed and pass through.<\/p>\n
If all goes as planned, Bacuri will be the first manatee released in the Caxiuana area. Two other calves rescued in poor health died in captivity, a sadly common outcome.<\/p>\n
While subsistence hunting isn\u2019t a major threat to the species, some fishermen still sell manatee meat illegally in nearby towns. <\/p>\n
Bacuri weighed 22 pounds when he was rescued and taken to the federally protected Caxiuana National Forest. AP<\/p>\n
Brazil banned hunting of all wild animals in 1967, with two exceptions:\u00a0Indigenous peoples\u00a0are allowed to hunt, and others can kill a wild animal to satisfy the hunger of the hunter or their family.<\/p>\n
The impact of climate change<\/p>\n
The threat of hunters has become harder to manage due to climate change, said Miriam Marmontel, a senior researcher at the Mamirau\u00e1 Institute for Sustainable Development, hundreds of miles (kilometers) upstream along the Amazon River.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs climate change accelerates, manatees may begin to suffer from heat stress too,\u201d Miriam Marmontel said. \u201cThey also have a thermal limit, and eventually it may be crossed.\u201d AP<\/p>\n
Dozens of dolphins died near Mamiraua in 2023, likely due to\u00a0soaring water temperatures\u00a0during a historic drought. <\/p>\n
Manatees avoided mass mortality then because they typically inhabit deep pools during the dry season, but\u00a0recent droughts\u00a0have\u00a0dramatically reduced the water level,\u00a0making manatees more vulnerable to poachers.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs climate change accelerates, manatees may begin to suffer from heat stress too,\u201d Marmontel said. \u201cThey also have a thermal limit, and eventually it may be crossed.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s why reintroduction efforts are so important.<\/p>\n
Around 60 rescued manatees are being cared for across the state of Para, where Caxiuana is located. One of the four, named Coral, was found dehydrated and with severe skin burns, likely from sun exposure. AP<\/p>\n
Around 60 rescued manatees are being cared for across the state of Para, where Caxiuana is located. Bicho d\u2019Agua is caring for four in partnership with the Federal University of Para and Brazil\u2019s environmental agency. One of the four, named Coral, was found near Obidos and airlifted 620 miles to the institute\u2019s facility in Castanhal. She arrived dehydrated and with severe skin burns, likely from sun exposure.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe population has declined so much that every hunted animal impacts the species,\u201d Renata Emin, president of Bicho d\u2019Agua, told AP. \u201cThat\u2019s why any effort matters, not just because one individual may return to the wild and help rebuild the population but because of the community and government engagement it inspires.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Deep in silence, as if under a spell, children watch intently as Bacuri, a young Amazonian manatee, glides…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":70982,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3847],"tags":[324,933,389,2311,70,16,15,1717,263],"class_list":{"0":"post-70981","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-amazon","9":"tag-animals","10":"tag-children","11":"tag-climate-change","12":"tag-science","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom","15":"tag-wildlife","16":"tag-world-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114443586488014975","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70981","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70981"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70981\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70982"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}