Jason Gulley
Surrogate Mothers
Manatee rehabilitation centre, Peru, 2023
Category - Change Makers: Reasons for Hope
Amazonian manatees (Trichechus inunguis) at CREA, a manatee rehabilitation centre near Iquitos, in north-west Peru, are bottle fed lactose-free infant formula every two hours throughout the day. Their mothers were likely killed by poachers for bushmeat which is sold at high prices on the black market. Manatees are illegally hunted for food throughout the Amazon and when mothers are killed, babies are often captured and sold or kept as illegal pets. Most slowly starve to death because infant manatees have highly specialised dietary requirements. The lucky ones are confiscated by police or surrendered by their owners and brought to CREA where they are raised by dedicated staff and eventually released back into the wild. Since its opening in 2007, CREA has raised and released 33 baby manatees.
24-70 mm f/2.8 Lens - 1/125 sec at f/8 ISO 500