Save Our Seas Foundation - Projects - Manatees (W. Africa)

It’s Official! African Manatees are now CITES Appendix I

2013-03-21T20:54:57+00:00

Last week was a very big week for African manatees: the Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species (CITES) voted at their Conference of Parties in Bangkok, Thailand to uplist African manatees from Appendix II to Appendix I, a more protected status which will likely ban all commercial trade. This move was remarkable considering how little information currently exists for the species (particularly population trends and documentation of illegal trade). The original proposal to uplist the species was drafted by the country representative from Senegal, and I worked with him and colleagues from the Species Survival Network (SSN) for the past 8 months to edit and update the proposal, and supply photos and recent species documentation. Thirteen range countries also signed a declaration to CITES stating they will work towards specific objectives to decrease illegal hunting, improve manatee habitat altered by human development, and promote research, conservation and educational outreach. We hope to keep the momentum going and to continue collaborating with range countries to make sure real changes start happening on the ground. One of our first activities will be to create manatee anti-poaching informational posters to be distributed to every wildlife law enforcement agency in all countries in which African manatees occur.

Victor the orphan African manatee

2012-11-11T20:24:35+00:00

On September 24, 2010 a live male West African manatee calf, approximately one month old, washed up on the beach in Mayumba, a very remote section of southern Gabon in central Africa. It is unknown where the manatee originated from, but evidence suggests he was traveling with his mother in the ocean and became separated. Staff from Mayumba National Park rescued the calf, which weighed 27 kg and was 117 cm long. This was the first documented record of a West African manatee in the Atlantic Ocean in Gabon.

After stabilizing him in a bath tub overnight, the calf was transferred to a corral, which the staff quickly built in the nearby lagoon at a quiet location. Lucy Keith Diagne was contacted since she has been studying manatees in Gabon since 2006, and she has led his care and fundraising efforts since. The manatee calf was named “Victor”, and he has now survived for 2 years, becoming the first of his species to be successfully raised in captivity. None of the people on site had worked with manatees previously, and all are to be commended for huge efforts over the past 2 years, including feeding the manatee bottled milk every 3 hours around the clock, treating wounds until they successfully healed, finding and housing volunteers, building Victor a new enclosure after he outgrew the first one, and locating and transporting supplies to the remote location.

The West African manatee project sponsored Puerto Rican manatee Masters student Jonathan Perez-Rivera to travel to Gabon twice, for 4 months each during 2011 and 2012. Jonathan trained Gabonese biologists in Victor’s care and conducted health assessments. This summer Jonathan helped transition Victor from bottles of milk to an adult manatee diet of native plants. Jonathan achieved great success and we are thrilled to report that as of the end of September Victor weighs 103 kg, he has now been completely weaned from the bottle, and he’s eating a diet of 100% plants! Victor is healthy and on track to be released back to the wild in a few months. Jonathan was able to collect a range of important samples from Victor during his time in Gabon, including blood, urine and hair samples, weekly weights, and length and other measurements to document Victor’s growth. This is the first time any of these samples have been routinely collect and analyzed for a West African manatee calf over time, and this is the first ever data on the growth and normal health parameters of this species. Jonathan will use this data for his Masters thesis, and he and Lucy also plan to publish it in a scientific journal. Lucy will use the hair samples to verify Victor’s diet over time using stable isotope analysis as part of her doctoral work at the University of Florida.

This has been an exceptional opportunity not only to help this individual, but for scientists to learn more about this elusive species, to promote educational awareness for manatees in Gabon and throughout Africa, and for international collaboration between manatee researchers from around the world. Unlike West Indian and Amazonian manatees, our physiological knowledge of this endangered species is literally nonexistent, thus Victor is a true ambassador for his species.

African Manatee Training Workshop in the Gambia

2012-09-21T15:21:11+00:00

Recently I taught my first African manatee research training workshop in the Gambia. Seven participants attended: 6 from Gambia’s Parks and Wildlife Dept., as well as my colleague Dawda Saine who works for the Gambian National Association of Artisanal Fisheries Operators. Dawda came to Florida last winter for advanced training in manatee necropsy and other field techniques, and now he wants to build a network for manatee research in the Gambia. He is an enthusiastic collaborator, and I was very grateful for all his help in coordinating all the local logistics for the workshop.

The first two days focused on lectures on manatee biology, fieldwork/survey techniques and sample collection. I included interactive activities such as practicing standard manatee measurements. The lack of a real manatee to practice on didn’t stop us, we used an inflatable orca pool toy. Even though it’s not the real thing, having the opportunity to practice measurements on a 3D scale gives the trainees a much better understanding of how to accurately take the measurements in the correct standardized way. We talked about the realities of doing a necropsy (because manatees are heavy and hard to maneuver if you’ve never done it before!). We also discussed the use and care of field equipment. On the last day of the workshop we took a boat out on Tanbi Reserve, a protected mangrove habitat area near Banjul. Everyone had the chance to practice using the field equipment, to collect environmental data, and to look for manatee feeding sign on plants along the shore. We also visited several freshwater springs where manatees have been sighted in the past, but didn’t see any (not surprising because we were there at mid-day and manatees here are mostly seen at dawn, dusk, and night). The goal this field trip was primarily to focus on the skills trainees will use when they conduct their own surveys, so it was a success. My project also provided the team with a set of field equipment, including a depth sounder and other environmental sampling tools so they’ll be able to begin fieldwork. I hope to return for future training and look forward to seeing the manatee network in the Gambia grow!

West African Manatee Rescue in Senegal

2012-06-01T15:38:14+00:00

Last week a West African manatee calf was rescued near a new community-based wildlife reserve at Lac de Guiers, in northern Senegal. The reserve, called Tocc Tocc, was established by Tomas Diagne, a Senegalese turtle and manatee reseacher, who worked together with local villages and the government to create it. Tocc Tocc is managed by a community group consisting of village chiefs and respected elders, and they began by cleaning out abandoned fishing nets last year. Monitoring of manatees in the reserve is underway, but when a fisherman discovered a manatee calf in a net outside the reserve, it was the first opportunity for many of the local fishermen to see the species up close. They contacted Tomas and I, and we went to the area to train the fishermen how to safely disentangle the manatee and to collect basic information such as measurements and samples that will be analyzed for genetics and dietary components. The calf was released, but unfortunately he re-entangled himself in another net 3 days later (we could identify him by a distinct scar on his tail), so we went back out and this time we moved him into the reserve where there are fewer nets. Other manatees had been seen in the area, so we hope the calf reunited with them. This impromptu training was a great experience because the local fishermen had the chance to ask lots of questions and to see manatee protection firsthand. Now we hope to raise public awareness about manatees outside the reserve, and to increase the size of the monitoring network on this 25 km long lake.

First age determination study for the West African manatee

2012-03-28T16:36:00+00:00

One attribute that manatees share with sharks is their ability to replace their teeth throughout life. Manatee teeth move forward along their jaw as the older ones in front of them wear down and fall out (think of a conveyor belt from the back of the jaw to the front). Because of this, teeth are not able to be used to determine the age of a manatee, so instead ear bones are used. Lucy Keith Diagne’s West African manatee project, in collaboration with colleague Katie Brill, is conducting the first age determination analysis of West African manatees using ear bones from carcasses. The technique (which requires slicing a very thin section of ear bone with a diamond saw and counting the rings, just like in a tree) has been used for Florida manatees for many years, but this is the first time this analysis has ever been conducted for West African manatees. We have recently aged the first 16 West African manatee ear bones from samples collected from four countries: Gabon, Ghana, Senegal, and Mali. The ages ranged from 12 to 39 years old (any age over 20 is considered old for a wild manatee!) and this information will be used along with genetic samples and stable isotope analyses (which are used to study manatee diet) collected from the same individuals to give us a picture of the lives of manatees in different populations. Age data also will be used to look at the impact of hunting on manatee populations throughout Africa. For example, 3 of 4 ear bones from Ghana were from young manatees that had not reached sexual maturity before they were killed, raising concerns that the population in this area is being hunted to extinction faster than they can reproduce. This study is ongoing and we plan to continue collection and analysis in order to obtain samples from throughout the range of the species.

Ear bone photo age answer= 16 years old

Building a researcher network for the West African manatee

2012-02-03T04:11:39+00:00

How do you study a highly secretive animal that lives in some of the remotest parts of Africa, in water that resembles chocolate milk? One answer is to train as many African researchers as possible to study them, from as many countries as possible. And then make sure they have the basic field equipment they need to collect accurate data- binoculars, GPS units, depth sounders, life jackets, tents and more. Then you build a network to facilitate communication and collaboration for these researchers. This is what West African manatee researcher Lucy Keith Diagne has been doing for the past four years, in addition to her own distribution surveys, genetics and stable isotope research on the species. Her work has been supported by Save Our Seas Foundation since 2009. She started out doing surveys throughout Gabon, central Africa in 2006 and quickly realized that the manatees, which we know very little about but which are heavily hunted throughout their enormous range (most of west coast of Africa, from Mauritania to Angola, and inland countries including Mali, Niger and Chad), needed more people studying them. So she began leading one to two week training workshops as well as bringing local biologists along on all of her field activities. She’s trained over 44 biologists from 17 countries in the past four years. The network is still in its infancy, but research and conservation activities have begun or increased in nine countries.

This past November Lucy began another phase of training by helping to support some of her African colleagues to come to Florida for advanced training in manatee field techniques such as carcass necropsy, collection and analysis of biological samples, live capture and health assessments of wild manatees, and tracking GPS tagged manatees. This hands-on training is provided by Florida manatee colleagues from multiple government and non-profit research organizations, and trainees are able to get more experience in three weeks than would be possible in several years in Africa. Aristide Kamla of Cameroon was the first researcher to come to Florida for this training, which is specifically for researchers who have started studying manatees in their home countries, but need more specialized skills to continue to develop their work, and to be able to train others. Aristide recently completed his Masters degree studying manatee distribution and habitat use in Lake Ossa Wildlife Reserve in Cameroon, and he is now planning to begin his PhD studies with the species. He hopes to become the first marine mammalogy professor in his country.

In just a few days the next trainee, Dawda Saine, will arrive in Florida from the Gambia. And with Lucy already busy planning the next training workshop in Africa for later this spring, the West African manatee researcher network is now building on both sides of the Atlantic.