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Buffett and Hugh, resident manatees in The Aquarium at Mote Marine Laboratory, disagreed when choosing the 2014 winner this morning, Jan. 24. Buffett chose the Broncos and Hugh chose the Seahawks.
“I’m going with Buffett this year,” said Manatee Research Supervisor Kat Nicolaisen, who sported a bright orange Broncos jersey.
“It’s pretty incredible that Buffett is now six for six,” Nicolaisen said. “We don’t know how he does it. The choice is totally up to him.”
Time will tell if Buffett’s winning streak will continue: Super Bowl XLVIII is set for Feb. 2.
About Hugh and Buffett
Aside from being sports fans, Hugh and Buffett are the world’s most extensively trained manatees. Training helps their veterinary care run more smoothly and allows the two manatees to participate in innovative research about their senses, such as hearing and touch, and about their physiology.
For more than 15 years, researchers at Mote have been studying how manatees perceive and navigate their underwater world, where boat strikes and other threats are common. Mote’s research is designed to help resource managers protect these endangered mammals.
So far, key findings show that manatees:
Moving forward, the researchers are studying manatee physiology — including their metabolism, nutrition, need for warm water and other traits of these unique aquatic plant-eaters — to better understand what environmental pressures manatees face and what conditions may help them survive and increase in number.
The two manatees are on exhibit daily in The Aquarium at Mote, which is open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. 365 days per year at 1600 Ken Thompson Parkway in Sarasota. Hugh and Buffett live in the Ann and Alfred Goldstein Marine Mammal Center at 1703 Ken Thompson Parkway, just down the street from the main Aquarium parking lot. For visitor information, go to www.mote.org, scroll over “Aquarium” and click “Visitor Information.”
Contacts and sources:
by Hayley Rutger