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The Status of Manatees in the Guianas

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 April 2009

G. C. L. Bertram  and
C. K. Ricardo Bertram
G. C. L. Bertram
Affiliation:
Cambridge
C. K. Ricardo Bertram
Affiliation:
Cambridge
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Manatees appear on the list of animals deemed by the Survival Commission of the International Union for Conservation of Nature to be in danger of extermination. Fortunately they are not yet very high on the danger list, but are nevertheless in need of proper conservation. A study of these animals in British Guiana and neighbouring countries was therefore undertaken early in 1962 to investigate the problems involved in their use and protection. British Guiana was chosen for this study since it was believed still to have as large a stock of manatees as any country, and because helpful people there made possible the best use of the three months available. This paper is concerned primarily with the status of manatees, both as regards their present abundance and their possible economic uses. Other aspects of the work will be published elsewhere.

Type
Research Article
Information
Oryx , Volume 7 , Issue 2-3 , August 1963 , pp. 90 - 93
Copyright
Copyright © Fauna and Flora International 1963

References

page 90 note 1 The work was made possible first of all by a grant from the Zoological Society of New York, followed by other generous grants from the Nuffield Foundation, the Zoological Society of London and Cambridge University (Foreign Travel Fund).

page 90 note 2 “In Search of Mermaids: The Manatees of the Guianas”, by Colin Bertram. Peter Davies, 1963, and a paper for Zoologica in preparation.

page 90 note 3 Together with the Dugongs and the recently extinct Steller's Sea-Cow, they are included in G. M. Allen's Extinct and Vanishing Mammals of the Western Hemisphere with the Marine Species of all the Oceans, published in 1942.

page 91 note 1 In New Amsterdam it was said that manatee meat is now for sale about once in every two months. Formerly the carcases used to be laid out in rows along with the fish. Those would have been the days to study the reproductive anatomy, whereas nowadays information is difficult to obtain as further killing seems unsuitable.

page 91 note 2 British Guiana. The Fisheries (Manatee Control) Regulations, 1961, made under the Fisheries Ordinance, 1956.

page 91 note 3 Allsopp, W. H. L. “The manatee: ecology and use for weed control.” Nature, vol. 188, p. 762, 1960.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

page 92 note 1 The main plants cleared by manatees in British Guiana are species of Cabomba, Anacharis, Leersia, Utricularia, Nymphaea, Nelumbium and a large variety of grasses.

page 92 note 2 It is possible that in order to be efficient weed-clearers, manatees must be hungry and that if kept hungry their fertility may be lowered. Hunger could be quantitative or qualitative.

page 93 note 1 “Some notes on the use of the manatee (Trichechus) for the control of aquatic weeds.” FAO Fisheries Biology Technical Paper No. 13, September, 1961.

page 93 note 2 This view was put forward briefly by the present writers in a letter on “Manatees of Guiana” published in Nature, vol. 196, p. 1329, 1962.CrossRefGoogle Scholar