Mysterious African manatees inspire a growing chorus of champions

Mysterious African manatees inspire a growing chorus of champions


As a young student, Aristide Kamla had “big plans” when he traveled to Lake Ossa in Cameroon to conduct his master’s degree fieldwork with the little-known African manatee. He was hoping for a manatee count and a management plan to come out of the expedition on the roughly 4,000-hectare (10,000-acre) lake. But securing grants was difficult for this budding researcher, so his first funder was his mother. Kamla says she gave him $500, a “huge” amount for the family’s modest means. It almost ran out before he saw a single manatee. Months later, on the brink of abandoning ship, a local fisherman put him back on track. The fisherman taught him, Kamla says, to go early when the lake lay still like a mirror before the wind rose, to be quiet and patient, and to look for the small signs. They were bubbles, floating poop, or the serendipitous breath that breaks the water’s surface. “The fishermen know the species better than anybody.” Kamla was galvanized. His eventual thesis focused on the distribution, habitat use and local perception of the African manatee (Trichechus senegalensis) in Lake Ossa and Douala-Edéa National Park. Subsequently, his work continues to contribute to our understanding of the species and its conservation, and has become more important than ever. This year, Kamla won the prestigious Whitley Award, which grants him 50,000 British pounds ($66,000) for his ongoing project on the world’s least-known manatee. African manatee expert Aristide Kamla, founder of the African Marine Mammal Conservation Organization (AMMCO), recently won…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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South Africa Today – Environment

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