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Another Dead Manatee
posted (June 8, 2018)
But it wasn't all smiles and celebrations today - around midday, a dead manatee washed up in the Buttonwood Bay area behind Brodies. Manatee expert Jamal Galvez was on scene and based on his preliminary examinations, he says it seems it was struck by a boat. It was bleeding from its nose. Chanona also got word of the tragedy and told us more about it in her interview.

Janelle Chanona, VP OCEANA Belize
"It is tragic that on World Ocean Day when everybody is trying to feel good, just around noon we got another alert that a juvenile manatee has wash ashore. It's really important for people to realize that given how long it takes for these creatures to continue their specie that we really need to assess what we are doing and obviously what we are doing needs to change. We need to do something different so we could get a different result and we need to realize that if we don't really put all in on this, we could be looking at possible losing manatees as a specie. That should give me cold seed every day and twice on Sunday. So we really need to make sure that for creatures that can't speak for itself, it's really important. This is why people are coming here. This is the enjoyment. I am sure anybody that's been walking a long any seawall anywhere in this country gets so excited seeing dolphins, manatees, turtles whatever it is, but really going beyond that and saying we have to look at what measures we can put in place by these manatees, because boat strikes and propeller deaths are really unacceptable at this point."

Jamal and his team will further examine the manatee to confirm the cause of death.

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