Letter from Orlando Joan ScalesAs Flounder and J.B. watch the wet-suited keepers jump into their tank, did they have an inkling that they were going back to the wild waterways they came from almost a year ago? I doubt it. The manatees, though very inquisitive, had settled comfortably into their home in Sea World after being rescued last year.
Sea World is one of the largest marine parks in the United States, and is located in Orlando, central Florida. What the public sees is the 250 acres of beautiful parkland with lots of marine mammals and fish. There are shows with Shamu the killer whale, petting dolphins, sharks in the restaurants and roller-coaster rides - but behind the scenes is a different picture. This is the foremost facility in Florida for the rescue and rehabilitation for marine mammals and, in particular, they have had a great success with the state mammal of Florida, the manatee.
Manatees are huge, gray aquatic mammals, closely related to the elephant and the rock hyrax of South Africa and are a highly endangered species in Florida.
The West Indian manatees have bodies that taper to a flat, paddle-shaped tail. They have two forelimbs, called flippers, with three to four nails. Their head and face are wrinkled with whiskers on the snout. The manatee's closest land relatives are the elephant and the hyrax, a small, gopher-sized mammal. Manatees are believed to have evolved from a wading, plant-eating animal.
The average adult manatee is about three meters long and weighs 362-544 kgs. The manatees are Florida's keepers of the waterways. These docile mammals live on the vegetation that grows along rivers, lakes and estuaries.
As they share their home with one of the fastest growing populations in the United States - from three million people to 17 million in less than 20 years, and 800 people transplanting every day - progress is killing them off. The slow-moving creatures are regularly run over by power boats, slashed by propellers and entangled in fishing lines.
On the day I was in Sea World, Flounder and J.B. were being loaded into a truck to take them back to the St John's River system in north-east Florida. It took 18 keepers and vets to load these massive mammals.
Though slow moving, they became very agile when the keepers tried to load them onto stretchers in the tank to hoist them out. Then they had to have a microchip implanted to track their movements, a short operation but one that necessitated a dozen strong men and women lying across them to hold them still. Then it was into the specially designed truck for the two-hour drive home.
Flounder and J.B. are the lucky ones. The manatee population in Florida has decreased by thousands in the past 30 years, with about 3,000 now known to exist. They are also susceptible to cold - when the water temperature falls below 68 degrees there is an increase in cases of hypothermia. Then Sea World and the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) have to act quickly to save them.
The Florida Manatee Recovery Plan was developed as a result of the Endangered Species Act. The recovery plan is co-ordinated by the USFWS and oulines a list of tasks geared toward recovering manatees from their current endangered status.
Unfortunately, manatees are not the only endangered species in Florida. Also on the list are Leatherback, Atlantic Hawksill and Green turtles, alligators, crocodiles and a wide variety of other mammals.
Brevard County in central Florida is where most of the stranded whales and dolphins are found.
The Hubbs Sea World Research Institute is at the forefront of marine research. Founded in 1963 by Dr Carl Hubbs and Milton Shedd, founder of California's Sea World at Mission Bay, its prime goal is to return to the sea some of the benefits we derived from it, and find practical solutions to problems that result from human interaction with the environment.
The latest Hubbs project is the establishment of a marine and coastal research facility in the Indian River Lagoon in eastern central Florida.
The location is historically and ecologically unique. One of the most biologically diverse estuaries in the US, it was the cradle of wildlife conservation. In 1903, on nearby Pelican Island, President Theodore Roosevelt established the first National Wildlife Reserve to protect brown pelicans from extinction.
Last month the US Commission on Ocean Policy published its report, the first far-reaching governmental report on the marine environment since the Stratton Commission in 1966, that was responsible for the Clean Water and Clean Air Acts. As a sign of the National Ocean Policy's importance, the commission has recommended that it be established within the executive office of the US president, chaired by an assistant to the president and composed of all the cabinet secretaries and independent agency directors with ocean-related responsibility.
In the report, the commission said over the past two decades the declining health of the US oceans and coasts has become evident while federal investment in ocean research has stagnated. Ocean research efforts have fallen from 7 per cent of the total federal research budget to 3.5 per cent today. Insufficient ocean science funding in the US has lessened pre-eminence in ocean research, exploration and technology development.
The commission also recommended that the US accede to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.
The US can only be a full participant if they proceed with accession expeditiously. The adoption of the new ocean policy will be of huge benefit to Florida where much work is being undertaken to preserve and conserve marine life, and make it a safer place for the docile manatees to live out their 60-year lifespan.