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Japón Manatí Educación y Estudio lab. (JAMES), Sociedad civil con personería jurídica

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Fecha de Fundación: 6 de Abril de 2018

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Directora representativa : Mumi Kikuchi

Miembros del Directrio : Shota Tanaka, Akihiro Tomita, Hiroshi Kokubo

Mensaje “Directora representativa  Mumi Kikuchi”

My name is Mumi Kikuchi. 

I have been studying the behaviour of manatees in collaboration with the National Institute of Amazonian research (INPA) in Brazil, and Amazon rescue center (CREA) in Peru.  

Main objective of my study is to understand the behavior of manatees under the natural condition by using the bio-logging methods.

Manatees are completely herbivorous aquatic mammals and local people rightly call them as “gentle giants”.

There are three species of manatees, West Indian manatee (Trichechus manatus), West African manatee (Trichechus senegalensis), Amazonian manatee (Trichechus inunguis).

Despite their use of coastal shallow habitats, much remains unknown about their biology.

With the ‘strong curiosity and interest’ about the manatees, I started the behavioral study when I was an undergraduate student.

My long-term goal is to know more about their ecology and behavior.

My main  study animal is Amazonian manatees.  Even though they are distributed throughout the Amazon basin, yet they are endemic to the Amazon nowhere else to be found in the world.

The large-scale capture of the Amazonian manatees for commercial purposes and illegal hunting being the main reason for reduction of their population .

Japan Manatee Education and Study lab (JAMES) aims to develop the biological studies and attempts to reach to a much wider audience to make them aware  about manatees especially for Japanese people.

In addition, we aim to develop a new environmental education in Japan.

Even though,  people are aware and have studied  about the environment problems, however, they stay on the sidelines and seem to be not interested in this issue.

I have  seen and felt the rich treasure of Amazon from my own eyes.

At the same time, I have also witnessed  vanishing wildlife, deforestation, abnormal weather, and plastic pollution in Amazon.

This motivates me to  reach to more people with information about the environmental issues  and think together what we can do for “coexistence with nature”.