1824
Research
scientist R. Harlan described the Florida Manatee as different from
the West Indian manatee or South American manatee and gave it a
species name latirostris.
1832 John James
Audubon noted that his guide in the Keys had for years hunted
manatees for sale and profit
1847 Native
Americans in Florida still reported to hunt manatees using canoes in
the rivers or along the coast.
1873 The Zoological
Gardens of Philadelphia attempted to maintain Amazonian manatees (Trichechus
inunguis) in captivity. The manatees lived two and a half
months.
1878 A large female
manatee from British Guiana was shipped to Greencock, England, and
transferred to the Royal Westminster Aquarium in London. The
manatee lived for another 6 months before dying from complications
from cold stress.
1880 Two West
Indian manatees were exhibited in Key West, Florida.
1882 or 1883 Dr.
Leonard Stejneger, a noted Steller Sea Cow biologist, obtains from
Russian workmen an assortment of Steller Sea Cow bones for the
Harvard University Museum of Comparative Zoology in Cambridge,
Massachusetts. Several specimens created for display.
1884 F. W. True
quotes Silas Stearns, a naturalist of national repute who collected
and supplied specimens of gulf marine life to the Smithsonian
Institution in Washington, D.C., on reports that manatees were
formerly seen along the northern Gulf Coast from Pensacola to New
Orleans and that their bones were formerly common. Note: Stearns
was later appointed a Special Agent of the U.S. Fish Commission and
was in charge of the 10th census of the marine industries of the
gulf.
1885 - An observer in
Florida noted that, ten years ago the meat (of a manatee) could be
bought at fifty cents a pound. The animals are becoming far too
scarce to admit of its being sold at all. There is no doubt that the
manatee is fast becoming an extinct animal . . . . The sea cow will
pass out of existence
and the only remaining trace of its former
existence will be a few old bones. (S.L. Peterson, 1974)
1893 Protection
under Florida State law (Ch. 4208.94)
