‘Remembering Snooty’ gallery would serve the museum well

It is very pleasing to read in the Bradenton Herald’s recent article that there are good prospects for the future of the South Florida Museum beyond the era of Snooty’s life.

If there is sufficient space available, has it been considered to set up a “Remembering Snooty” gallery, with a series of pictures illustrating the scope of his life? Each could have a simple piece of explanatory text and some, where film or video is available, could be brought to life by the viewer pushing a button to set a short clip running. The buttons should be as indestructible as possible and not too high off the ground. It would be nice to include a section with some footage showing Snooty’s special mannerisms and unique interactions with people. It would also be good to incorporate some pictorial guidance for people who go boating and/or fishing and how they can protect manatees in the wild —especially what to do if they come across an injured manatee.

At the Millennium Dome in London, people could post messages on a form, which were to be collated and made public in the future. Something similar might work for Snooty messages, which could later be bound into a book, in addition to the present online memorial.

Some time, way ahead in the future, if another manatee should happen to be born in captivity, then I think it would be worth considering applying to adopt such a manatee, perhaps bringing it up to interact with people, if this can be done harmlessly. But it would be important to avoid using a repeat of Snooty’s name, to make sure he will remain unique amongst manatees.

This story was originally published August 26, 2017 at 1:17 PM with the headline "‘Remembering Snooty’ gallery would serve the museum well."