User:Manatista/sandbox

The Puerto Rico Manatee Conservation Center is a research, education, rescue and rehabilitation partnership established in 2009 in the Caribbean island of Puerto Rico to help endangered manatees survive from extinction.

Endangered manatees
Caribbean manatees (Trichechus manatus) are a tropical marine mammal threatened from survival throughout their range in the United States (US), Central and South America. It is highly endangered in Puerto Rico, mostly by human causes in the form of poaching and watercraft mortality. While over 4,800 manatees are left in Florida, less than 700 survive in Puerto Rico. Manatees used to be hunted in Puerto Rico’s coasts, but are now directly threatened by habitat degradation, speeding boats and jet skis. Indirect threats also include a low reproductive rate, genetic bottleneck and low diversity, lack of in-migration of adjacent populations, and exposure to adverse coastal health.

If manatees are to survive in Puerto Rico, all stakeholders, including government, academia, environmental non-governmental organizations (NGOs), local corporations and all island residents in general, must work together and actively participate in positive actions of management, research and community involvement that would enhance the survival of the species and preserve them for future generations.

History of the Center
As a response to this needed effort, the NGO Red Caribeña de Varamientos (Caribbean Stranding Network) partnered with the Inter American University of Puerto Rico to implement research, rescue, rehabilitation and community outreach programs for manatee conservation through the establishment of the Center. Through a long-term cooperative agreement, and permits and licenses from Puerto Rico’s Department of Natural and Environmental Resources (PRDNER), US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) and US Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, both institutions slated academic programs to support research and conservation work in the Center, particularly with the participation of students and faculty as well as the means of seeking funds available to academia and community-based organizations to support the manatee conservation initiatives.

While this conservation effort is focused on manatees in Puerto Rico, the Center also assist in programs for West Indian manatees in British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Colombia, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Mexico, Turks and Caicos, and Venezuela, and for endangered sister species, such as the Amazonian manatee (Trichechus inunguis) in Colombia and Peru, and the West African manatee (Trichechus senegalensis) in Taiwan and Gabon. These international partnerships have taken the Center’s scientists, veterinarians and technicians to provide assistance and support in rescue, rehabilitation and population research project.

The Center implements conservation initiatives for manatees in four main fronts or programs: (1) Rescue and stranding response, (2) Rehabilitation and veterinary care, (3) Population research, and (4) Community outreach and education.