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Manatees are best known to television viewers, and to those who have actually seen them in Florida. Although they occur in the Caribbean, the tropical eastern countries of South America, and the western shores and rivers of West Africa, they are very rarely seen wild and alive except by fishermen. Their close relatives, dugongs, are found only along tropical coasts of the Pacific and Indian Oceans. But they also have many similar features to their only living cousins: elephants.
Today, they are a critically endangered, gentle and harmless species of mammal. Formerly mythological attributes surrounded them, as being half fish, half beautiful women: ‘mermaids'. Yet, if you can get to know them as individuals, you discover large (up to about 10ft long) real, responsive and fascinating animals.
I had this privilege in 1970 - 1977 in Benue-Plateau State, Nigeria, as Consultant Zoologist (Wildlife) for the Ministry of Natural Resources. During that period, with the enthusiastic staff of the Wildllife Unit and the support of the then governor of Benue-Plateau State, I was able to establish the existence of a viable (although rapidly diminishing) population of manatees in the area, and also to initiate conservation procedures.
Moreover, my staff and I were also able to rescue several that had been captured in fishermen's nets. These we transported to a swimming pool in the Wildlife Park at Jos, the capital of Benue-Plateau State. There they received veterinary treatment, and sympathetic handling, and could also be seen by the visiting public. In 1977 we were able successfully to return two, a mother and her son, to ‘the wild'.
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