Omer 2019 Day 17: Manatees

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Omer 2019 Day 17: Tiferet in Tiferet, Beauty in Compassion
Manatees

I've always liked manatees, even though they're known as the sea cow (because they eat mostly aquatic grasses). I read an article in Zoobooks (remember how amazing Zoobooks were?) when I was younger about how manatees were always getting run over by speed boats, and it made me really sympathetic to them. As mammals, manatees breathe oxygen from the air, and must come to the surface periodically to breathe. The fact that they dwell in relatively shallow water, are not particularly agile or fast-moving, and can be difficult to discern from above, makes these animals are particularly vulnerable to injury by human activity. It is often said that "beauty is in the eye of the beholder," which is obviously true as these gentle giants are often associated with mermaid folklore. In fact, Christopher Columbus thought he saw three mermaids near his ship as he sailed the ocean blue, but it was actually the first recorded sighting of a manatee.

This year's animal Omer is a collaboration between myself and my friend Halli, a PhD in animal science. Thank you for counting the Omer with us!