On Sept. 7, in celebration of International Manatee Day, Clearwater Marine Aquarium and the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium announced a new partnership called the Wider Caribbean Manatee Alliance (WCMA).
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The alliance is an international network that will link strategic partners across the Caribbean region to collaborate on conservation, community engagement, and research that will help manatees.
Their mission is to ensure a healthy future for manatees and their coastal ecosystems and the species’ ecological, cultural, and economic significance for future generations.
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“Manatee populations are listed as endangered or vulnerable according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), but for some local governments, their range population is considered critically endangered,” according to Alvarez-Aleman Caribbean research director at Clearwater Marine Aquarium Research Institute. “The IUCN’s Red List of Threatened Species™ evaluates species by severity of threat from ‘least concern’ to ‘extinct.’”