Journey North Manatee Spring 2004

Manatee Migration Update: March 24, 2004

Today's Report Includes:

This Week's Manatee Migration Update
What's Attracting Manatees Offshore? Discussion of CQ #12
Did You ID the Moving Manatee? Discussion of CQ #13
What's Your Aerial Manatee Count? Discussion of CQ #14
What's Next? Coming Next Week

This Week's Manatee Migration Update
This "CQ" Update discusses last week's Challenge Questions, and your answers too. Watch for these CQ Updates every other week.

What's Attracting Manatees Offshore? Discussion of CQ #12

Did you know?
Manatees and Dugongs
are the only herbivorous
marine mammals
(Do you know what
"herbivorous" means? Or what an
"herbivore" is?)

Last week Susan Butler asked you "Why do you think some manatees have been visiting offshore areas now? What are they finding there? And why do they wait until now? "

Hi again, Students!

As winter ends and spring warms the water and air temperatures, manatees are no longer restricted as much to the winter warm water areas. Now, they can swim freely to be grazing in offshore areas of their habitat like Cape Romano, 'the mother of all grassbeds'

Why are these seagrass beds such an important part of manatee habitat?

Link to:
In Springtime, Manatee's Thoughts Turn to Offshore Grassbeds

See you next week,

Susan Butler
Sirenia Project

Video Challenge Part II: Did You ID a Moving Manatee? CQ #13
In Challenge Question # 13 Ranger Wayne asked you: "Who is the mystery manatee in the video?"

"Hi Kids!
Did you figure out who the moving manatee was? I want to give my congratulations to Nathan and Seth from South O'Brien Middle School who both answered this correctly by saying 'I think it's Juan.' Great job!

"With this experience, you're already on your way to becoming a manatee researcher! Being able to correctly identify individual manatees like this is very important, because it gives us the chance as scientists to observe and study individual manatees over time.

"But how did you go about identifying this moving manatee? Take a look at my comments, diagram and pictures--did you look for the same identifying features as I did? As you'll read in my notes with the diagram, sometimes it's not so easy, even for a veteran expert like me!

How did Ranger Wayne know it was Juan? Click to find out		Click image to enlarge and see Juan up close

So long for now,
Ranger Wayne Hartley "

What's Your Aerial Manatee Count? Discussion of CQ #14

After landing your classroom flight, we asked you "How many manatees can you count in this aerial photo? Were you able to find as many manatees as Airborne Ackerman did in Manatee Park?" (Was it harder than you expected?)

Several students from South O'Brien Middle School attempted this question. Nathan counted 69 manatees. Seth counted 70 manatees. Dillon counted 75 manatees.

Jennifer, Charles, Kris and Ashley from Grade Three at Ferrisburgh Central School in Ferrisburgh, VT also answered: "We counted 73 in the picture. 72 were in cove and there was one more swimming out in the open."

What's the real count? Congratulations to Jennifer, Charles, Kris and Ashley--they had the same count as expert Dr. Ackerman who reported:

"I counted 72 manatees (including three outside the main group--1 is in lower left at edge of frame, 2 are in lower right near a power pole.) " Some of them are faint and hard to see--but that's my story and I'm sticking to it! See how hard it can be to count manatees?!"

What's Next? Coming Next Week

Do you know what pizza has to do with calculating how much a manatee eats?

Come back next week and find out!

The Next Manatee Migration Update Will Be Posted on March 31, 2004.