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Jamal Galves, a native of Belize, has been passionate about protecting wildlife since his childhood. From the age of 12, he knew he wanted to work with animals – specifically manatees. In 1998, Jamal met Sea2Shore Executive Director and founder Dr. James “Buddy” Powell and USGS scientist Robert Bonde while participating in his first manatee capture. Working with these two renowned scientists influenced Jamal enormously; he was immediately hooked and soon found himself taking every opportunity to work with manatees. While most of his high school classmates were spending their weekends and holidays relaxing, Jamal was working with scientists, monitoring and feeding two manatees in their final stages of rehabilitation, and eventually helping with the tracking of those two manatees after their release. After finishing high school, Jamal volunteered to work with Belize program manager, Nicole Auil Gomez, and was eventually given a full-time position with the manatee project, continuing his dream of protecting wildlife. Jamal’s responsibilities include capturing, tagging, and tracking manatees; collecting data; rescuing and monitoring rehabilitated manatees; assessment of dead and injured marine mammals and educational program in schools. He also heads the Belize Marine Mammal Stranding Network, and holds a position on the Belize manatee working group team. Jamal is also a representative in Belize for the Jane Goodall’s Roots & Shoot program. Jamal holds a degree in general arts and biology from St. John's Junior College School of Liberal Arts in Belize. He is looking into further education in Environmental Science.