UPDATE: Miriam Marmontel 10 February 2000
On Carnival Sunday, the Brazilian Amazon was the scenery to a pioneer fact. For the first time, an orphan, captive-raised Amazonian manatee was released back into its natural environment. The lucky male Mixirinha is part of a threesome raised by wildlife biologist Dr. Miriam Marmontel, of the Mamirau� Project, in Tef�, 700 km west of Manaus, for the past 5 years. Confiscated by environmental protection agents and emaciated, the animal is now a healthy 2,0 m and 200 kg. The three animals were transferred from their urban pool in Tef� to a 54 m2 (2 m deep) floating pen within the Mamirau� Sustainable Development Reserve. To help minimize the possibility of being hunted, Marmontel and team will spend most of the next 12 months close to Mixirinha. At the same time they will monitor its movements and performance by means of a belt-mounted radio transmitter. Communities and hunters will be advised of the presence of a manatee in the area. Mixirinha was released in a total protection zone of MSDR, where there is a local population of manatees. He will have a few months to get acquainted with the natives and follow them in their yearly migration in July. If all goes well Boinha, the first female, will be next, by the end of the year. If successful, the experiment may be used to avoid that aprehended orphan calves, whose mothers were killed by hunters, spend the rest of their lives confined in tanks and pools without mating. Curious and naive, calves are easily captured by hunters, who use them as bait. In an attempt to protect the offspring, the mother doesn't leave the calf, becoming an easy target. Its meat is distributed among the community or sold, and the calf may end up at some big wig's private pond as a symbol of status. The release of this one animal in Mamirau� will not ensure the species is out of danger, but is a great alternative to help improve the gene pool by returning to the wild a large number of animals presently in captivity.
UPDATE: Miriam Marmontel 10 February 2000
On January 26, 2000 Sociedade Civil Mamiraua successfully transported 3 captive Amazonian manatees from an urban setting into a floating pen in the Mamiraua Sustainable Development Reserve, in western Brazilian Amazon. This is part of a process that intends to culminate in the first attempt at reintroction of Amazonian manatees into natural habitat. Hunting still goes on throughout the region, and the destiny of some of the calves, after serving as bait for mothers to be more easily harpooned, is to be raised in captivity in someone�s private property pond (at best) or to be sold as meat to river traders. One of the manatees under Mamiraua�s care was captured under these circumstances, and confiscated by IBAMA (Brazilian�s equivalent to Department of Environmental Protection) from the buyer�s house in town. Another one was confiscated in the field, emaciated and being held by its tail to the margin of a lake. The third was eventually donated to the Project by hunters, who could not care for it. Boinha (f, 6), Mixirinha (m, 4,5) and Quinquim (m, 4) were bottle-raised from early age and recently weaned and maintained only on aquatic plants from water bodies nearby. Prior to transport they were seen by a vet, at which time blood samples were collected (presently being analyzed), as well as feces (part of ongoing sampling for reproductive hormone study). The animals were marked in three ways: liquid nitrogen, antibiotics and cookied. They were each fitted in a specially-built wooden bed, placed in three speed boats powered by 40 HP motors, with help from the local army. The trip to final destination took about 2 hours, during which they were constantly maintained wet. The floating pen was built with submersion-resistant timber (piranheira) and measures roughly 6,5 x 9 x 2 m depth, quite an improvement from the adapted human pool they lived in for the past years and shared with 2 giant river otters. The manatees have adapted well and are eating normally. At his time, as the waters rise, they will hopefully meet some of the natives as they go upriver towards the headwaters of Mamiraua, where they normally spend the wet season. If all goes according to plan, Mixirinha will be adapted with a belt-mounted VHF transmitter built in Sirenia Lab (FL), and released into the headwaters during Carnival this year, and subsequently constantly monitored to determine how it adapts to the natural environment and in an attempt to minimize the possibility of being hunted. During the coming months it is hoped that it joins the local group and follows it as they move out ot the area (generally to Amana Reserve �next-door�) as waters start to recede in June/July. (The Mamiraua Reserve, located 700 km west of Manaus, and 40 km from the Amazonian town of Tefe, is a 1,124,000 ha flooded-forest protected area where the local population was maintained and involved in the decision-making process. Along with Amana Sustainable Development Reserve and adjacent Jau National Park (closer to Manaus), it comprises the largest block of protected tropical forest in the world, with over 6 million hectares, and represents the embryo of the Central Amazon Ecological Corridor.
