Where there’s smoke, there’s fire: Hypotheses for the high incidence of West Indian manatee calf strandings on the Brazilian semi-arid coast

Novelli et al., 1990). In this region, most river systems are temporary, featuring hypersaline mangroves and meadows known as "apicuns" (Soares et al., 2021).Thus, mangroves are underdeveloped along this coastline due to insufficient freshwater runoff and extended periods of drought (Schaeffer-Novelli et al., 1990).An interesting characteristic of this region is the presence of submarine groundwater discharges in coastal waters (Meireles & dos Santos, 2012), where manatees go to drink freshwater (Alves, 2007) In this region, 84% of stranded manatees are calves, especially newborns, resulting in an 'inverted J-shape' age-specific mortality curve [Fig. 1, with data from Meirelles (2008), Silva (2010), Lima