That is, until the mayor of the community stepped in.
He had this 500-gallon cistern that gathered rain water, and that was the drinking water for his family. He turned over the use of his cistern for the care of this young manatee, which of course meant his family had to get their drinking water from somewhere else, Dr. Bossart said.
The next problem was finding enough people to mount round-the-clock care and bottle-feeding every four hours. At first, the director of the Omacha Foundation thought it would be impossible.
Thats when the Colombian military stepped in, with many soldiers volunteering to help in the efforts to feed and care for Airuwe.
For two years, the Foundation and community worked together, eventually moving Airuwe into a larger pool, weaning him off the bottle and onto natural vegetation, and then moving him into a lake.
On February 8th of this year Airuwe was examined by Brazilian veterinarian Marcia Picanco, fitted with a belt-mounted transmitter, and set free in the Tarapoto lake system in the Colombian Amazon.
For the first 10 days he moved back and forth through channels in the flooded forest to nearby lakes, returning to the release point from time to time, eating aquatic grasses and plants. Scientists continue to track the young manatee, and Dr. Bossart says its a success story, not only for the manatee, but also for the community of Puerto Narino, the Omacha Foundation, and the Manatee Outreach Program.
Dr. Bossart says the care of orphaned manatees like Airuwe is the most common situation the outreach program faces. It involves on-site visits and training, consultations via the internet and telephone, and even air delivery of medical supplies, natural manatee milk, artificial milk formula
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Contact: Geoff Oldfather
oldfather@hboi.edu
561-465-2400
Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution
8-Mar-2002