Amazon river creature "torments" kayaker

[worldstarcountry]

A woman I went to high school with and remained friends with over the years is the Director/Curator of primates at the Bronx Zoo.  Prior to that, she was the director of Mammals there.  I asked her to look at the footage and she said "There's no way that's a manatee".  She's not sure what it is, but she said the splashing at a distance near the end of the video was interesting and more indicative of a reptile or school of fish than a mammal.

I think your friend should stick to primates, or she completely ignored the large broad grey and mottled mammals under the kayak in the video. I see these things in the bay occasionally swimming under the pedestrian access of one of the three bridges that cross to the peninsula across from us. They are also easy to find in shallow neighborhood back channels when kayaking. Here is a video of a bunch of small ones splashing in a crystal clear spring.


In the OP video they are paddling down a river it looks, not a crystal clear spring. So although its a bit murkier, it seems quite clear to me they are manatees.