Unaï arrives in Paris! No, the former Paris Saint-Germain coach is not returning to the bench at the Parc des Princes. Unaï is a little two-year-old female manatee who arrived this week at the Paris Zoological Park.
A transfer from the Beauval ZooParc, in Loir-et-Cher, where this young West Indian manatee was born on January 23, 2022. No private jet for the new recruit from the National Museum of Natural History (the owner establishment from the Paris Zoological Park), but arrived by truck, in a large box lined with thick damp mattresses and filled with water. All maintained at 25°C to ensure good comfort.
Conservation and reintroduction
It is as part of a conservation and reintroduction program for this subspecies of manatee (Trichechus manatus manatus) that the move from Unaï to Paris is taking place. Indeed, with only 5,000 to 7,000 individuals in the wild, the West Indian manatee is considered “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
It is thus the subject of a protection and conservation program in European and North American zoos which aims, ultimately, to reintroduction of manatees into their natural environments, that is to say in the waters of the Caribbean.
It is for this reason that Unaï, after a phase of adaptation in the waters of the Tropical Greenhouse basin, will meet the three males who already reside there. A group with more males than females, the normal social nucleus for this animal.
Two other new recruits to watch
The reproduction issue for the species is important since manatees have a slow reproductive rate, with one-year gestations which only take place every four to five years. Especially since gestation only gives birth to one little one.
While waiting for Unaï to go find his new companions, it is already possible to go and observe him. She is not the only new addition to the Paris Zoological Park Team since two female rhinoceroses, Ora and Shani, also arrived in March.