Caxiuana National Forest, Brazil Deep of silence, as if they were under a spell, the children look closely how Bacuri, a young Amazonian manatee, slides around a small plastic pool. When it appears in search of air, some of them exchange broad smiles. The soft whisper of the leaves of the tropical jungle scored by the bird song adds to the magic of the moment.
The children of Riverside Communities traveled for hours by boat just to meet Bacuri at the Emilio Goeldi Museum Field Station, the oldest Research Institute in Brazil in the Amazon. Despite their endangered status, manatees are still hunted and their meat is sold illegally, and are increasingly threatened by Climate change Environmentalists hope that by involving local communities, Bacuri and others as they will be saved.
The Amazonian manatee is the largest mammal in the region, but it is rarely seen, much less closely. The reasons for this are double: the manatee has an acute audience and will disappear in the murky water with the slightest sound; And its population has decreased after being overwhelmed for hundreds of years, mainly because of its difficult skins that were exported to Europe and Central America.
To help the population of Manatis to recover, several institutions are rescuing orphaned manaten calves, rehabilitating them and reintroducing them to nature.
Bacuri weighed only 22 pounds (10 kilograms), a fraction of more than 900 pounds (400 kilograms) of an adult manatee, when he was rescued and taken to the Museum’s Research Center in the National Federal Caxiuana Forest. He was appointed after the local community that found him. Two years and several thousand bottles of milk later, Bacuri has grown to approximately 130 pounds (60 kilos).
Three institutions are responsible for their care. The Goeldi Museum offers facilities and educates nearby communities. The Federal Institute for Biodiversity Biodiversity Mendes assigns two employees for 15 -day shifts to feed Bacuri three bottles of milk a day, as well as beets and chopped carrots, and clean the pool every 48 hours. The non -profit institute Bug d’Agua, which means Water Animal Institute in Portuguese, supervises veterinary attention, dietary planning and caretaker training.
During their visit, the children find out that the female manatees are pregnant for approximately one year and then breastfeed their young for two more, feeding them with nipples behind their front fins, the equivalent of manatees of the armpits. This long reproductive cycle is one of the reasons why the Population of Manatees has not recovered from commercial hunting that persisted until the mid -twentieth century.
They also learn that the species is in danger and that they must protect it.
“You are the main guardians,” says the Tatyanna Mariúcha biologist, head of the scientific base, who spend the rest of the day drawing and doing Play-Doh models.
With its auditorium, bedrooms, observation towers, cafeteria and laboratories, the research station, two hours by fast boat of Portel, the closest city, contrasts with the nearby communities that comprise groups of wooden houses on peaks where families are based on the agriculture of Cassava, the fishing and the collection of the berries of Açaí. School excursions and community dissemination aim to reduce the gap.
“Caxiuana is his home,” Mariúcha told Associated Press. “We cannot simply come here and do things without your consent.”
Local knowledge will play a key role when Bacuri finally lashes. He is the only calf the calf under Caxiuana. Once you have made the transition completely to a diet based on plants, it will spend time on a river enclosure before its release. That site will be selected depending on where residents say that wild manatees feed and pass.
If everything goes as planned, Bacuri will be the first released in the Caxiuana area. Two other calves rescued in poor health died in captivity, a sadly common result.
While subsistence hunting is not a great threat to the species, some fishermen still sell manatee meat illegally in nearby cities. Brazil forbade the hunting of all wild animals in 1967, with two exceptions: Indigenous peoples They are allowed to hunt, and others can kill a wild animal to satisfy the hunger of the hunter or his family.
The threat of hunters has become more difficult to administer due to climate change, said Miriam Marmontel, principal researcher at the Mamirauá Institute for sustainable development, hundreds of miles (kilometers) upstream along the Amazon River.
Dozen dolphins died near Mamiraua in 2023, probably due to High water temperatures during a historical drought. The manatees avoided mass mortality because they generally inhabit deep pools during the dry season, but Recent droughts have drastically reduced the water level, Make the manatees more vulnerable to poachers.
“As climate change accelerates, manatees can also begin to suffer heat stress,” Marmontel said. “They also have a thermal limit, and can eventually cross.”
That is why reintroduction efforts are so important.
Around 60 rescued manatees are being treated through the state of Para, where the Caxiuana is located. Bug d’Agua is taking care of four in association with the Federal University of Para and the Environmental Agency of Brazil. One of the four, called Coral, was found near clubs and transferred 620 miles (1,000 kilometers) to the facilities of the Institute in Castanhal. It arrived dehydrated and with severe skin burns, probably due to sun exposure.
“The population has decreased so much that each hunted animal impacts the species,” Renata Emin, president of Bug d’A Agua, told Ap. “That is why any effort is important, not only because an individual can return to nature and help reconstruct the population, but for the participation of the community and the government that inspires.”
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