Canola the manatee named Singapore River Safari's new animal icon

Singapore's River Safari, which hosts panda stars Kai Kai and Jia Jia, on Wednesday unveiled a manatee named Canola as its new animal icon.

Canola the manatee has a dramatic life story, to say the least. Born on August 6, 2014, Canola was abandoned by her mother. To give her a chance of survival, River Safari's aquarists dived in to render round-the-clock care for the newborn.

Canola was finally successfully reintroduced to the manatee herd under the doting care of her human caregivers in 2014, and can now be seen swimming along with the herd in the world's largest freshwater aquarium - River Safari's Amazon Flooded Forest.

In her new role as River Safari's animal icon, Canola will be the wildlife ambassador for her species and all threatened wildlife in the wild.

River Safari is home to 14 West Indian manatees, six of which are male while the rest are female. Manatees are listed as Vulnerable in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Their numbers have declined in the last century due to hunting pressures, entrapment in commercial nets and collisions with propellers and motorboats.

Through captive breeding of manatees, River Safari hopes to contribute to the species' population. Over 10 manatees have been born in Singapore. The park has plans to repatriate two manatees to Guadeloupe in the Caribbean as part of a breeding program to repopulate the region where wild manatees have become extinct for the past 100 years.

"Canola is the first manatee hand-raised by aquarists in River Safari. To ensure her health and wellbeing, her keepers have maintained a very close bond with her through ongoing medical training sessions. By making Canola an icon and ambassador animal, we hope her life story will inspire our guests to join in our conservation efforts to save threatened freshwater wildlife," said Dr Cheng Wen-Haur, Deputy Chief Executive Officer and Chief Life Sciences Officer, Wildlife Reserves Singapore.

In line with Canola's new role as River Safari's animal icon, a series of illustrations which depict various facets of her personality have been developed. They capture her in different poses and should endear Canola to people of all ages.

On weekends from June 4 to 26, the public can also join Manatee Madness in River Safari, which offers a series of manatee-themed activities, a manatee mascot meet-and-greet and an exclusive behind-the-scenes tour with Canola. Endit