And while that trio could face a fine of up to a $1000 per piece of turtle slaughtered, in another area of the Belize District, the corpse of a female manatee was recovered from a thicket of mangroves. A total of 23 manatee deaths have been recorded for 2023, but what could have led to the death of this one during a crucial time for manatee repopulation, also known as mating season? We asked the Manatee Man:
Jamal Galvez, Manatee Researcher
"From the video footage I've seen so far it's a female and I can allude to the fact that that female may have drown during mating, which is common. It's the nature of the beast. These animals have their natural behaviour that sometimes led to death and then you add human impacts to it. So any animal loss is an animal we lose to the population - a mother that was being mated which would have likely given a calf in the future."
"There is significant concerns. Right now, we are at 23 deaths for the year. The year hasten even finish as yet."
Reporter
"This is a population with about 1,000 individuals?"
Jamal Galvez, Manatee Researcher
"That's what we are estimating it to be. And if you look at the death rates in the previous years, these things add up. It's not a bright future for manatees. Hence the reason we are doing everything possible to not go beyond where we are, because Belize is the last hope for this species. Our efforts here is critical, not just for Belize, but for the species on a global scale, because other countries that have manatees have small numbers not enough for it to rebound. So all the other countries around the Caribbean and Central America that share this species are looking at Belize and they are hoping that we can do enough to sort of bringing this population back to the numbers that they once were."
A necropsy will be conducted on the manatee so samples can be taken and sent to the Clearwater Marine Aquarium in Florida for further analysis.
