swimming with manatees

[MsRuthieB]

Thanks kingkong! I actually started another thread called Vegetarian Dining (I think) and someone else mentioned TheSweetTomato too. I'm definitely going to have to check it out. Being veggie is the main reason I rented a villa for our holiday. I figure I'll just cook our main meal of the day. I'm thinking mid day well head back from WDW and take a couple hours break. It'll be seething hot when we're there and the kids will need the break anyhow. But, I would like to eat out at least once too. I'm going to try that place out. I suppose I can google it, but off hand do you know if they have a website?

[athurstance]

There is quite a good book 'Vegetarian at Walt Disney World' or something like that. I've had mine a couple of years as my husband is a veggie and it has a good range of restaurants.

Angela

[Lars Andersen]

Hello manateee lovers,

I thought you all might be interested in this editorial I wrote a few years ago. I'm a nature guide, leading tours on over 40 north Florida waterways. In the winter, nearly half of my tours are manatee tours, with about 2 per week being to Crystal River. I'd be interested in your thoughts and feedback.

Thanks, Lars Andersen

-----------------------------

To my fellow manatee tour operators,

It's time for us to get out of the water! All of our talk about concern for the manatees is starting to ring hollow as we continue to ship scores of "manatee lovers" up Crystal River every day and unload them into the manatee's living room. As the front line between the animal-loving public and the endangered manatee we have a huge responsibility. We need to keep reminding ourselves that the manatees come here every winter to survive, not to visit with us. They need for us to leave them alone. The number of injuries and deaths caused by motor boats, dams, locks and other machinery of mankind is well known. But there is another threat - us! We're loving them to death.

The same tour operators whose walls are thickly plastered with information about the plight of these amazing mammals are the same ones who carry boatloads of people daily out to swim with them - out to the manatees winter sanctuary where they are working hard to get all of the food and rest they need to survive the cold. We are intruders on their world.

The important point here is, while some manatees tolerate our presence, there are many others who don't. When people jump in the water, they are chasing some manatees away. Paddling upstream toward the spring, I can usually tell if there are many people swimming in the spring long before I get there by the number of manatees passing under my boat, heading downstream.

If it's a matter of survival - the manatee's or ours - then the answer is clearly for us, the outfitters making a living off of them, to back off. We humans have the luxury of choosing our strategy for survival. We have many kinds of jobs from which to choose. Many ways to make money and keep ourselves fat and happy - including running manatee tours. For the manatees, there is no choice. They have only one way to live. And coming into warm-water refuges in the winter is a critical part of their survival regimen. They aren't here because they enjoy the company of dozens of humans poking, grabbing and chasing them. They are trying to survive the winter. Most of them aren't enjoying us so much as they're tolerating us! They have no choice.

There's no doubt that some manatees really do seem to enjoy our company? Is that good? Haven't we learned time and again that it's not good for us to befriend a wild animal to the point that it alters it's behavior? Is it good for manatees to associate the sound of boat motors with friendly swimmers when we all know that boats are the single greates cause of manatee deaths and injury?

I realize it's a two-edged sword. Much of the attention now focused on the manatee's plight, and the efforts to protect them, are a result of so many people having the wonderful experience of swimming with them. But the situation is getting out of control. During the winter, scenes at places like Three Sisters springs at Crystal River are nothing short of grotesque.

We need to read those posters on our walls. We have a responsibility to know what the manatee's need and to act on it. We know they need to eat over a hundred pounds of vegetation every day to survive the winter. We know that making a manatee (or any animal) move around more than necessary burns up much needed energy reserves. We know they need sleep and that they get their sleep by taking long "naps" day and night. We know the sound of SCUBA gear scares them. We know frequent trips between cold and warm water, which often happens when divers chase or crowd them out of the springs, makes them more susceptible to pneumonia and other sickness. We know that by interfering with any of these necessities, we are endangering them.

<fon

[SusieDozOrlando]

Wow I can feel the tension in this forum...

So for KingKong or whatever his name is.....here's some do's and dont's for the future.

1. don't advertise swimming with a manatee whilst removing your kids from school during term time! [}]

Providing you stick to those rules, you should be fine on the forum! [8D]

By the way, can someone tell me which way my high horse is, so I can get off it before someone kicks me off it!