If you’re looking for the perfect gift to give your loved one this Valentine’s Day, Save the Manatee Club suggests adopting a real, living manatee for them. 

35 years ago, Save the Manatee Club started offering symbolic adoptions of real-life manatees for $25. Funds from the Club’s Adopt-A-Manatee program go toward efforts to help protect manatees and their habitat. Given record breaking manatee deaths in our area, conservation leaders shared they could use support now more than ever. 

“We are offering whatever help we can to the Fish and Wildlife Service, the Fish and Wildlife Commission, our manatee rescue and rehabilitation partners. And those manatee adoptions help us be there for the manatees and do what we need to do to make sure every manatee possible is being protected and recovered and if they are sick or injured, they are nursed back to health and then they are returned to a healthy environment,” said Patrick Rose, Executive Director of Save the Manatee Club.

Each adoption includes a personalized adoption certificate, photo, biography of your chosen manatee and a one-year Save the Manatee Club membership that includes a newsletter with updates on the adopted manatee.

To Adopt-A-Manatee, click here or call 1-800-432-JOIN (5646)