Manatees are gentle megafauna threatened by boat strikes and habitat loss. Zoos and marine facilities play important roles in rehabilitation, research, and conservation education for this vulnerable species.
Manatee welfare involves both individual animals in rehabilitation and population-level conservation. Individual welfare harms include boat strike injuries — propeller lacerations, blunt trauma from hull impact — that require months of rehabilitation. Cold stress syndrome, where manatees congregate in thermal refuges during cold snaps and may become hypothermic if these refuges are disrupted, has caused mass mortality events. Facilities including SeaWorld, ZooTampa, and Cincinnati Zoo participate in the Manatee Rehabilitation Partnership, treating injured and cold-stressed individuals for return to the wild. These programs represent welfare intervention at scale that directly benefits wild populations. The primary welfare threat — boat strikes — requires behavioral change from the boating community and regulatory interventions including slow zones in manatee habitat. Seagrass restoration addresses the nutritional foundation of manatee welfare at ecosystem level.