For Immediate Release

Break free from giving traditional Valentine’s Day gifts this year. Adopt a manatee through Save the Manatee Club! For $25, your special valentine will receive an adoption certificate, photo, biography, membership handbook, and a subscription to Save the Manatee Club’s informative newsletter, The Manatee Zone. Or for $35, each new member who joins the Adopt-A-Manatee program online will also receive a free plush manatee – yours to keep and cuddle, or give to your valentine. A personalized Valentine’s Day gift card and message is included with every adoption.

Kathleen Phillips from Palm Beach County, Florida adopted a manatee for her husband Larry a number of years ago for Valentine’s Day. “I didn’t think my husband needed candy or shorts with hearts on them, and since both my husband and I are animal lovers, I thought adopting a manatee seemed like a perfect gift alternative,” said Kathleen. “I chose Robin from Blue Spring, and every year since then, I have renewed the adoption.”

Robin is one of nineteen manatees available in Save the Manatee Club’s adoption program at Blue Spring State Park near Orange City, Florida, about 40 minutes northeast of Orlando. He was born in 1980, and like most manatees in the wild, Robin bears a number of scars all over his body from boat strikes. Despite past injuries, Robin remains playful and active, visiting the spring each year to enjoy the warm water during the cold months. The 72-degree year-round temperature at Blue Spring is very attractive to Robin and many other manatees who seek this winter refuge when the surrounding waterway temperatures become too cold and can be potentially lethal to them.

Only about 3,000 manatees remain in the United States today, and they are listed as endangered by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. Save the Manatee Club, a nonprofit organization, is the world’s leading manatee conservation group and was established in 1981 by U.S. Senator Bob Graham and singer/songwriter Jimmy Buffett. Funds from the adoption program at Blue Spring, as well as from the two other adoption programs at Homosassa Springs Wildlife State Park and Tampa Bay, go toward education and public awareness endeavors; research, rescue and rehabilitation projects; and advocacy and legal efforts to help protect manatees and their habitat.

Kathleen, who enjoys gardening, butterfly watching and smooth jazz, is concerned about the manatees’ future. “I feel they are losing their habitat and the odds are stacked against them. I don’t want to see them vanish from our planet,” said Kathleen. “Save the Manatee Club is doing everything in its power to protect manatees and get the word out to people that manatees need our help.”

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