{"id":2406,"date":"2024-01-04T17:23:48","date_gmt":"2024-01-04T15:23:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/soaringwords.dops.digital\/?p=2406"},"modified":"2024-01-04T17:24:03","modified_gmt":"2024-01-04T15:24:03","slug":"manatees-galore","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/soaringwords.org\/manatees-galore\/","title":{"rendered":"Manatees Galore"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It\u2019s a typical 21<sup>st<\/sup> century occurrence when a large group of people spontaneously converge with cellphones held aloft to capture something for posterity, or at least for a new Instagram post. Such was the case when I looked up from my latest book to discover fifty people walking along the beach, all pointing their cellphones at the ocean\u2019s edge. Naturally, I also reached into my beach bag, grabbed my cell, and sprinted over.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDolphin?\u201d I inquired, hoping to stumble upon a pod of my favorite sea creatures.<\/p>\n<p>It reminded me of a time I spontaneously swam with a pod of dolphins shortly after leading my first Soaringwords team-building experience for 400 engineers at Verizon. (You can read more about this story <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/SOARING-into-Strength-Love-Transcends\/dp\/B0BHMRQQLJ\/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2J62LFEWQAFZZ&amp;keywords=soaring+into+strength&amp;qid=1704374221&amp;sprefix=%2Caps%2C133&amp;sr=8-1\">here<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p>The answer shocked me: \u201cIt\u2019s a manatee!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sure enough, an eight-foot hunk of mammal was floating through the turquoise water, oblivious to its growing fan base along the shore.<\/p>\n<p>My only encounter with a manatee was a stuffed animal that my brother, Gary, had bought for my son, his beloved nephew, shortly after he was born.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCute,\u201d I said. \u201cBut, what is it?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s a manatee,\u201d Gary replied.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat are those indentations on its back?\u201d I pointed to the striations marked on the back of the stuffed manatee.<\/p>\n<p>Always rooting for the underdog, or in this case, under-manatee, Gary explained how boat propellers were endangering manatees\u2019 lives.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe profits from the purchase of the stuffed animals support efforts to protect manatees,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Manatee swimming video\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/lk4Uc0ZgbkU?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Thirty-three years later, face to face with a real deal. It was mesmerizing and it made me feel close to my brother, who was a transplanted northerner who loved living in Florida. After walking about half a mile, I decided to return to my book.<\/p>\n<p>Later that night, my husband and I were walking along the river looking at boats when I pointed out a manatee awareness sign. We hadn\u2019t seen it before that day. We took a few steps closer to the water\u2019s edge and gasped.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cJacob, look!\u201d and there in front of us were two hulking manatees silently floating under the surface.<\/p>\n<p>After consulting Google, I discovered that the local Miami population swells between December through February. I\u2019m looking forward to having these manatee neighbors for the next month!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It\u2019s a typical 21st century occurrence when a large group of people spontaneously converge with cellphones held aloft to capture something for posterity, or at least for a new Instagram post. Such was the case when I looked up from my latest book to discover fifty people walking along the beach, all pointing their cellphones [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2407,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57,56],"tags":[45,280,482,481],"class_list":["post-2406","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-family","category-stories","tag-family","tag-florida","tag-manatee-protection","tag-manatees"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/soaringwords.org\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2406","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/soaringwords.org\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/soaringwords.org\/api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/soaringwords.org\/api\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/soaringwords.org\/api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2406"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/soaringwords.org\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2406\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2409,"href":"https:\/\/soaringwords.org\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2406\/revisions\/2409"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/soaringwords.org\/api\/wp\/v2\/media\/2407"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/soaringwords.org\/api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/soaringwords.org\/api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/soaringwords.org\/api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}