|
About | Contact | Mongabay on Facebook | Mongabay on Twitter | Subscribe |
|
|
Neither slow nor stupid, manatees are killed by boats because they can't hear them Jeremy Hance, mongabay.com December 12, 2008
Biologists had assumed that manatees could hear the boats, but were just too slow to avoid them and too dull to learn to avoid boats after being hit. Dr. Edmund Gerstein, director of marine mammal research at FAU’s Charles E. Schmidt College of Science, was not convinced by this generally accepted argument. “Manatees have the cognitive prowess to learn and remember as well as dolphins and killer whales,” Gerstein said. “Furthermore, when startled or frightened, manatees explode with a burst of power and can reach swimming speeds of up to 6.4 meters per second in an instant.”
"It is ironic that slow speed zones result in quieter and lower frequency sounds which manatees can’t hear or locate in Florida’s murky waters,” Gerstein explains. “Slow speed zones make sense in clear water where the boater and the manatee can see each other and therefore actively avoid encounters. However, in turbid waters where there is no visibility, slow speeds actually exacerbate the risks of collisions by making these boats inaudible to manatees and increasing the time it takes for a boat to now travel through manatee habitats thereby increasing the risk and opportunities for collisions to occur.” The new findings spurred Gerstein and his team to find a solution. They created an acoustic device specifically made to alert manatees. “The alarm emits a high-frequency signal which isn’t loud, doesn’t scare or harm manatees and doesn’t disturb the marine environment,” said Gerstein. Testing the device in a NASA wildlife refuge, Gerstein found that when the device was sounded 100 percent of manatees avoided the boat. In trials without the device, only 3 percent of manatees moved out of the boat’s way upon approach. Gerstein believes the same type of device can be used to save other marine mammals. For example, right whales are known to be injured or killed from being struck by large ships in shallow seas.
Tags: marine mammals in-situ conservation marine conservation environment united states animals mammals biodiversity wildlife green jeremy hance News index | RSS | News Feed | Twitter | Home Advertisements: Organic Apparel from Patagonia | Insect-repelling clothing
|
WEEKLY NEWSLETTER 
Photos HIGH RESOLUTION PHOTOS / PRINTS 
CALENDARS 
CANVAS BAGS 
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Copyright mongabay 2010 Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions generated from mongabay.com operations (server, data transfer, travel) are mitigated through an association with Anthrotect, an organization working with Afro-indigenous and Embera communities to protect forests in Colombia's Darien region. Anthrotect is protecting the habitat of mongabay's mascot: the scale-crested pygmy tyrant. |
