Anecdotal Accounts of Manatee Behavior: Conservation and Management, Behavioral Ecology, and Cognition

Herein, we report anecdotes of manatee (family Trichechidae) behavior based upon accounts made by experienced observers. We have categorized the anecdotes into the broad categories of Conservation and Management (interactions with boats, people, and capture nets; rehabilitation and release), Behavioral Ecology (navigation, mother-calf inter-actions, interactions with conspecifics, mating behavior and birthing, anti-predator behavior, for-aging and eating), and Cognition (sensory percep-tion; learning, memory, and knowledge; interac-tions with objects, other species, and people; and mimetic behavior). These are all subjects that per-tain to the goals of the Florida Manatee Recovery Plan of 2001. We found that many accounts report similar behaviors, suggesting that these may be fruitful lines of further inquiry. One subcategory, Navigation, appears to offer many research areas amenable to systematic study. The apparent behav-ioral flexibility and knowledge shown in manatee actions in several domains suggest that investi-gations of manatee intelligence are likely to be revealing.