Two Manatees found dead off Belize City

Belize may have a large population of Manatees but their days of easy living appear to be numbered. Today Manatee researchers report two corpses found in the waters off Belize City. According to preliminary examinations, the victims may be a mother and child.

Nicole Auil, Manatee Researcher
?This Manatee was found today at Duke Marine in their canal and it?s a female calf, that we are still working on to determine the cause of death. Ugly enough we got a report yesterday that there was an adult found floating behind the Central Bank of Belize, so when I looked at it, it was an adult female. This morning it was reported at the House of Culture, and we have been unable to remove it from there because we don?t have a boat at the moment. However, it was an adult female, and it?s curious to know that we got a calf and a female. There state of decomposition is about the same time, which would indicate that they died around the same time. The mother may be at a slightly further state of decomposition than the calf. We haven?t open up the mother yet to determine the cause of death. However, I would like to point out one thing which is that there is a lot of boat traffic in these shallow waters, and I wouldn?t be surprise if this animal died from a boat injury. Let?s say this is the calf of the adult female that has died of a boat injury, and the calf probably starved to death, because it is a dependant calf, which means it does have to nurse from its mother to survive.?