An Encounter with Grace and Peace

Manatee at Three Sisters in Crystal River, Fla.

I had a special encounter this past Friday.  I swam with manatees.  In fact my whole family swam with manatees.  I had seen them before from docks and from shore, but your really do not know the wonderful creatures until you join them in their world.  They are the most graceful and peaceful creatures I have encountered.  You would think that they would fear humans.  We have loud fast boats that injure and often kill them.  We are not always good neighbors, putting our needs and desires ahead of those of the creatures around us.  The creatures I met were friendly and curious. I felt welcome as we swam into their spring.  As a conservationist, I was really torn on the advisability of swimming with an endangered species.  Their low reproductive rate makes it difficult for them to recover from the population declines caused by hunting and boat accidents.  Any little change in their natural behavior could cause further impact.  After reviewing the new policies for manatee encounters (enforced by law and required by all tour operators to share with swimmers) I decided that I could be a more effective advocate for the manatee after a personal encounter.  The new guidelines, if followed, put the encounters a bit more on the manatee's terms.  You must wait for the manatees to come to you and you may touch them with only one hand at a time.  They are very curious creatures.   I had three different individuals come up from behind and below me to check out my camera and they seemed to like to the contact.  Once in the water you quickly realize that these are large animals.  Adults average around 10 feet in length and can be over a thousand pounds.  Yet, they are silent as they move through the water.  Moving with the grace of a ballet dancer.  I came away from the encounter with a new understanding of what it means to share an ecosystem.  It is all too easy to forget that we are living organisms within a complex ecosystem where all living things affect one another.  Human's have mastered the ability to alter our surroundings to meet our needs that we separate ourselves from the rest of the system.  We have a responsibility not only to ourselves but to all organisms we share this earth with to live in balance within the ecosystem, or the system will rebalance itself and we may not like the result.