Pleased to meet you! Touching picture shows the moment a little girl came face-to-face with an underwater giant

By DAILY MAIL REPORTER

Greetings: Reaching their hands and faces forward, both the tiny girl and this manatee expressed curiosity in the other during a friendly visit at an Orlando water park

A surprised little girl received a huge greeting when she pressed her hands and face to the glass of a manatee tank in Orlando, Florida.
Tilting her head up to take in the gentle giant, the toddler was captured by a photographer facing one of the SeaWorld park's equally curious sea cows which averages 800 to 1,200lb in weight. (363 to 544 kg)
Several times her own size, the water mammal floated before her, a rescued sea cow from the area recovering from outside injuries more often due to boating propellers.
An herbivore, the only water mammal in fact to prefer marine and freshwater plants, the gentle beast posed no threat to the girl even if she were bathing in the water herself. Typically moving at speeds of five miles per hour, as evidenced by those who collect both algae and boat propeller scars on their backs, humans have shown more of a threat to them with their numbers placing them on the endangered species list.

Big eaters: Herbivores, whose size averages between 800 to 1,200lbs in weight, the mammals related to elephants consume 100 to 150lbs of food a day

Found in warm tropical and subtropical waters in North America, South America and West Africa, once the park’s manatees are found healthy once again, they will be returned to their natural habitat.
Making a recent example, in February two of their manatees - named Mud Puppy and Bodacious - were released at Satellite Beach, just south of Cocoa on Florida's eastern shore, the SeaWorld team reported.

Rescue efforts: All of the manatees at the Orlando water park were rescued from the wild after popular injuries like boat propellers. Once they've recovered they will be re-released into the wild

As the temperature rises this summer, those two are expected to seek cooler waters, traveling up the coast typically around the Carolina states.
In some rare cases manatees have been reported as high as Massachusetts.
On display at the park in Orlando year around, guests venturing to the top of the manatees’ tank, including the small girl, can watch the manatees munch on floating cabbage, a favourite of the creatures with their daily food intake requiring between 100 to 150 pounds a day.

source: dailymail