Eitan's Blog  

Last week we went on a field trip to the Richmond Zoo. We saw lots of animals and some were some of my classmates Endangered species. We saw big cats and small monkeys. We even saw some primates and by the primates there was a lake and in it they had(for some reason) fish like carp and some turtles. And on one of the primates habitat Levi spotted a water snake and it wasn’t even supposed to be in the zoo! We paired up with Taylor and Campbell. We saw the following Endangered species. Giraffes, Elephants, Snow Leopards, White Rhinos. We walked around for a long time and then we had lunch. After we finished lunch we walked to the bird cage where birds could land on you or on the stick of food. One of them landed on me when we got their and one after that landed on my stick of food. After the birds we walked past the farm animals and to the crocodiles and some kinds of goats not the farm kind. We walked back to the gift shop and I got a slap bracelet and a squishy. We had so much fun at the zoo. It was a awesome day. And by the way we went into the snake house and saw lots of cool snakes some poisonous and at the end of a row we saw baby monkeys. We also got to see a tour with mammals, reptiles, and birds. It was a great day!

In third grade we have been learning about endangered species. My animal is the Florida manatee. It is a mammal which means that it has hair, drinks it’s mothers milk, and uses lungs to breath. It’s skin is dark gray and it is two inches thick. It has very little hair and algae grows on its back so it has to rub itself on a rock to get the algae off. The average weight for both male and female is one-thousand lbs. . The average length for females is 6-7 feet and the males is 6-8 feet. The females are actually bigger than the males.

They live in Florida in warm waters because if they live in cold waters they would die. They can live in the cean but mostly in rivers and lakes. They live in fresh and saltwater and they will live anywhere where there are water plants and the place is warm. They migrate to warmer waters when their waters that they were living in get cold and it could take weeks or even months for the water to get cold. They group together to find a warmer place and that is one of the only times that they group together. A group of manatees is called an aggregation. They live in waters that can get up to 10 feet in depth.

The Florida manatee has one young at a time and when the baby is born the mother pushes the baby up to get its first breath. They have 2-3 years in between having babies . Their mothers teach their calf how to do things and then they go off on their own. The calf needs to stay with their mother. They guard their young but don’t attack to protect them. The fat in the mothers milk help the calves grow faster. Newborns weigh about 70 pounds. The mother will scream underwater to call their calf. They eat water plants from the bottom of their habitat but sometimes  they eat leaves from overhanging trees.

My next category is adaptations and what that is, is something that helps them survive in the wild. One of their adaptations is that they have flaps of skin on their their nostrils so when they want a breath the flaps go up and they can breath but when they are underwater the flap goes down and they don’t get water in their nose. They only breath through their nostrils! They have nails on their flippers so they can stay in one place and move in the current. Their flippers pull out the water plants and push it into their mouth which I think is really cute!

The Florida manatee is listed on the Threatened status list. The reason is people and motorboats. People are hunting them for game and for their skin. Scientists are putting chemicals in the water and hurting or killing the manatees. One of the reasons is that they swim into lock gates and get crushed. The propellers spin fast and the manatees are slow moving creatures so when they swim into the propellers they get killed or the luckiest thing that could happen to them is they get scarred for life. The scientists identify manatees by their scars. They have a huge loss of environment because people are hunting them and putting buildings on the water

There are 13,000 of them left in the wild. They have been making reserves and what reserves are is a protected area that you cannot hunt them in. Since people are helping them their environment is totally changing and their numbers are increasing.One thing that I can do is I can not pollute. They have been making laws like you cant touch a manatee with two hands but you can with one only if it touches you and a no wake manatee zone sign.

Did you know that Columbus thought that they were three mermaids but it was actually just three manatees and they are called sea cows because they eat grass from the bottom of the sea. They are related to elephants and their snouts are like stubby elephant trunks.they are the largest kind of manatees in the 4 kinds of manatees.Thank you for reading my blog today.

R: I chose this blog because I loved researching the Florida manatee. I learned some really cool facts like they are the largest kind of manatees.