I think manatees havesuch a sweet countenance- I had no choice but to design some manatee jewelry. Awhile back I was reading a publication that referred to them as “grotesque”. Itook offense! After all, these are the animals that sailors mistook formermaid. I don’t know that I would go so far as to compare them to the etherealbeauty of this story book creature, but grotesque they most certainly are not!
Since I live in Florida, manatees were a natural for me to design. Ialso figure in some small way creating manatee jewelry might help to raise theawareness of people concerning these amazing and threatened animals.
Manatees belong to a group of animalsknown as the sirenians, of which there are 4 species. They live in shallowcoastal bodies of water and in river estuaries. They are complete vegetarians,living on grasses and aquatic plants that they grasp with their bristle coveredlips.
Manatees, unfortunately, have threethings against them. They are docile and have no way of defending themselves,they have a very low reproductive ability and they have what is considered bysome to have delicious meat. Outboard motor blades are their enemies;fortunately, much has been done solve that problem. I would say that it’spretty much up to us humans to take care of them.
I hope you enjoy my manatee jewelry anddecide to wear some of it with pride!
