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Holidays
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A
Totally Original Gift Idea
Save
The Manatee Club
(article
courtesy Save The Manatee Club)
Are
you looking for a unique way to say you
care this holiday season? Say “I
Love You” with a manatee. For twenty
dollars, you can adopt a manatee for your
valentine through Save the Manatee Club's
(SMC) Adopt-A-Manatee program and send
a personalized Valentine's Day gift
card and message. You'll provide a
year's worth of love and help protect
an endangered species.
Weighing
in at an average of 1,000 pounds and measuring
10 feet long or more, manatees are close
to being a ton of love. These “gentle
giants,” as they have been called,
are large, slow-moving, aquatic mammals
known for their sweet temper and curiosity.
Manatees spend most of their time eating,
resting, and traveling and can be found
along the southeast coast of the United
States. A migrating species, manatees
need warm water to survive and are located
primarily in Florida in the winter.
There
are 30 manatees in SMC's Adopt-A-Manatee
program. Twenty of the adoptive manatees
live in the wild and migrate each winter
to a natural warm water spring at Blue
Spring State Park, near Orange City, FL.
Five female manatees live permanently
at Homosassa Springs Wildlife State Park
in Homosassa, Florida. In addition, five
manatees frequently seen in the Tampa
Bay area and along the west coast of Florida
are up for adoption.
Manatees
in the adoption program at Blue Spring
include Lenny, Flash, Nick, Phyllis, and
Lily. Lenny is known as the “couch-potato”
manatee because he likes to sleep a lot
when visiting Blue Spring. Flash is a
shy manatee, so named because he takes
off at the slightest sound. Nick is affectionately
known as “Crazy Nick,” because
he has been known to head north when all
the other manatees are heading south for
the winter. Phyllis is a faithful visitor
to Blue Spring. Park rangers think she
likes the area because she has been named
attendance champion so many times. Phyllis
recently brought a new calf to the spring.
Lily is also a Blue Spring regular. In
fact, she is usually one of the first
manatees to arrive each season.
Holiday
article continued next page, click
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