If manatees are to be protected, their habitat must also be preserved. Manatees, humans, and all forms of life are dependent on clean, available water. In Florida, it is imperative to understand the importance of water - where it originates, where it goes, and how our health and the manatee's is affected by its quality and quantity. Water covers three quarters of the earth's surface and much of Florida's surface area. All water on the planet is part of the hydrologic cycle, and is constantly circulating from one part of the system to another in finite amounts. Water is found in many forms - solid, liquid, and gas - and in many bodies, such as oceans, rivers, springs, lakes, wetlands, and aquifers. Surface water evaporates. It is carried through the earth's atmosphere as vapor, and then falls as precipitation. Precipitation, or rain, that falls over land can become runoff, eventually flowing into lakes, rivers or wetland areas. Some precipitation percolates into the ground. This is called infiltration. Water is absorbed by plants, which in turn give some water back to the atmosphere from the surface of their leaves. This recycling is called transpiration. Excess precipitation seeps below the ground to become groundwater. Sometimes groundwater is stored in aquifers, which provide much of Florida's drinking water. Sometimes groundwater flows underground to an opening in the substrate and becomes a natural upwelling or spring. Florida has about 320 known springs. Many of the large springs are havens for manatees in winter months because the water temperature of springs is relatively constant throughout the year, averaging about 72 degrees F. When surrounding river waters chill, manatees move into these springs to keep warm. Springs serve as refuges for manatees and as important indicators of the health of hydrologic conditions. Much of Florida's surface area is covered by wetlands. The term "wetlands" describes many different types of aquatic environments, including coastal and inland marshes, ponds, bogs, wooded swamps, bottomland hardwood forests, and wet meadows. Wetlands remove silt and filter out many pollutants, including harmful chemicals, all of which can pollute manatee habitat and human water supplies. However, if pollutants are concentrated in high levels, wetlands can be altered or destroyed and their usefulness diminished or eliminated entirely. Manatees move through a variety of aquatic habitats in Florida and are dependent on the health of these aquatic ecosystems as well as the integrity of the hydrologic cycle. All life forms on earth are similarly dependent to various degrees.

Activities Discuss how all forms of life, including man and manatee, are dependent on natural resources such as clean water and air, and how water contamination affects all living things. List some possible ways to clean up Florida's waterways. As a class, participate in a local clean-up campaign in your community that would be beneficial to the manatee. Much of Florida lies over an immense water supply called the Florida Aquifer. Many communities in Florida rely entirely on aquifers for drinking water and other water needs. Read more about the aquifer system in Florida and research your community's water system. Do you rely on an aquifer for your water needs? Plan a field trip to your local water treatment plant for a first hand look at where your water comes from. Start a class project on water conservation and make a list of things that each student can do at home to conserve water. Kissengen Spring near Bartow, Florida, stopped flowing in 1950. What could have caused the spring to stop flowing? Do you think manatees might have used this spring as a warm water refuge? What did they do when the spring disappeared? Ponce de Leon "discovered" Florida in 1513. Write an essay on how Florida, and specifically manatee habitat, would have looked when the first Europeans came here. We do know that Christopher Columbus saw manatees, and that Ponce de Leon was on Columbus' second voyage. Since Ponce de Leon had much contact with the Indians who used the manatee as a food source, could Ponce de Leon have known of the manatee? Make a list of other early European explorers who might have come in contact with the manatee.

To Next Section - Activites with Florida Map
Back to	Back to	Back to