Featured Image Credit: Christopher J Gervais
By Kira Krall
I don’t know about you, but we use emojis in most of our texting conversations. Unicorns, alligators, and tigers and more, but what about our favorite aquatic herbivore? Lowry Park Zoo is gathering signatures on a petition for the development of a manatee emoji. Its goal is to get 25,000 signatures before presenting the petition to Unicode, the business responsible for developing all the emojis we know and love.
This emoji petition is part of a fundraising and awareness plan that seeks to fill the financial needs of Lowry Park Zoo’s manatee hospital patients. The Zoo’s manatee care costs average at about $1 million per year. The Zoo has many different ways that individuals can contribute, from donating generous chunks of cash to simply uploading a picture of the David A. Straz Jr. Manatee Hospital with the hashtag #LoveManatees.
Lowry Park Zoo is one of only three federally permitted manatee treatment centers in Florida. The center began in 1990 and since has treated over 400 sick, injured, or orphaned manatees. Their involvement in manatee rehabilitation, along with the effort of various facilities and agencies all across the state, has led to recovery of manatee populations. They were delisted as an Endangered species just this past summer. They’re still listed as Threatened and are protected under the Marine Mammal Protection Act.
With continued care of sick, injured, and orphaned manatees, in addition to state and federal regulations, we can hopefully kick manatees out of endangered classification territory for good!
Look here for more information on Lowry Park Zoo and their David A. Straz Jr. Manatee Hospital.