Welcome to the Manatee Project

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Meg and her mom were so enthusiastic about finding Eee and her calf. Its nice to see that there are some people in the area that are truly concerned with the fate of this endangered species.	Since so many of you were concerned about the cormorant, I snapped this picture from the boat today. Cormorants in Florida are quite happy and healthy. We usually see them diving for fish, but this particular bird is merely taking a rest on the manatee sign.

With so many manatee sightings today, we all had a chance to play every role on the boat. My favorite, I think, is using the trolling motor. My confidence has increased with this equipment, and its nice to be so close to the manatees when they surface next to MERV.	These are not laws for boaters, but they are suggestions that are provided on a sticker when a person registers their boat yearly. Do you think any of these suggestions should be part of the laws protecting manatees? Why or why not?

Mrs. Frederick and I were fortunate to see Victoria again in Pansy Bayou this afternoon. I was able to get a shot of her scars from the sea wall. She is one of the most mutilated animals we have seen during our two week investigation.	This is another skill that our group needed to acquire in order to get around and do our observations. Pumping gas into a boat is similar to a car, except someone must watch the gas gauge closely. When the tank is close to full we stop pumping to avoid having it spill over into the manatee habitat that we are trying so hard to protect.

Based upon the number of manatees in this photo, can you guess which sighting it came from?	At night we took Teresa out for her birthday. We ate at a restaurant where we could enjoy the sun setting out over the water. She told me at dinner that Mote is planning to develop a new manatee web page and that she would like to include some of your work there. She has already looked at your drawings and clay images and is quite impressed!