Meet A Manatee: Jemp
A red tide survivor and ladies' man(atee)
 |
Jemp, AKA “SB022,” is known to frequent the Sarasota and Lemon Bay areas, but he also travels in a wide range along Florida’s west coast – from Tampa Bay to the Florida Everglades. (Photo credit: Mote Marine Laboratory, Sheri W. Barton)
|
With an unusual moniker like Jemp, you might wonder how this particular manatee came to acquire his name. Jemp is a male manatee, and he was named for Jenny, Elizabeth, Mary, and Peggy – four volunteers who were present in 1990 when he was first documented by Mote Marine Laboratory researchers in Sarasota Bay, Florida.
Jemp, AKA “SB022,” is known to frequent the Sarasota and Lemon Bay areas, but he also travels in a wide range along Florida’s west coast – from Tampa Bay to the Florida Everglades. He usually spends the summer around Sarasota Bay and has spent some winters near Port of the Islands and at Everglades City. Jemp is also one of the few manatees documented in the Englewood, Florida area. Jemp has a scar pattern that makes him easily recognizable to manatee researchers. Among other markings, he has a large white scar on the right middle part of his back and a slightly smaller white scar on his lower right back.
|
| Jemp's scar pattern makes him easily recognizable to manatee researchers. If you look closely, you can see that in this photo he is also wearing a tracking belt around the base of his tail. (Photo credit: Mote Marine Laboratory, Jessica K. Koelsch) |
|
Jemp is well known to manatee researchers, and he has often been spotted in mating herds (doing his part to increase the endangered manatee population!). In July of 1995, he had to be rescued after being exposed to red tide, which are microscopic organisms that give off a toxic byproduct and affect the central nervous system of marine life in the area. After he was rescued, Jemp spent some time in rehabilitation at Lowry Park Zoo in Tampa and was released in August that same year.
“When he was first taken into captivity, they did not think he would make it through the night,” said Jessica Koelsch, a manatee researcher with Mote Marine at the time. “Because of space constraints, he was put in a tank with an adult female manatee, but he was so ill, he could barely float. To the surprise of the medical staff, the next morning Jemp was not only alive but vigorously chasing his female tank mate around!”
 |
| Jemp is a red tide survivor. He was exposed to it in 1995 and had to be rescued. Tagged for four years after that, he seems to be doing fine and also made it through Florida's record cold winter in 2010. (Photo credit: Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission) |
|
When he was released in 1995, Jemp was fitted with a tracking device, and he wore it for four years. Later, after a 1996 red tide event where over 150 manatees died, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission staff decided to keep Jemp tagged so they could study a red tide survivor. In 1999, Jemp’s tracking gear was taken off and his tagging event was brought to an end. After Jemp’s tag was removed, there was a period of seven years where he remained incognito, and he was not seen from 2002 to 2009. But researchers were excited when he popped back up again in a mating herd near Sarasota in April 2009.
Then came record cold temperatures in Florida in the first months of 2010, which caused unprecedented levels of manatee mortality and was followed by another unusually cold weather period in December of 2010. In total, nearly 400 manatees are believed to have died from this lingering event, shattering the previous record of 56 cold-related deaths for a single year. In addition, several dozen manatees suffering from cold stress were rescued around the state. Thankfully, Jemp was spotted twice in late May and again in early June 2010 in Pansy Bayou, just off Sarasota Bay, so we knew he had survived the chilly weather.
During the 2010 – 2011 manatee season, there were no reported sightings of Jemp. But earlier this summer, when most of our Tampa Bay adoptees were nowhere to be found, there was one notable sighting. Jemp, who was not observed once all last winter, was spotted on May 26th in Big Pass in Sarasota Bay. He was, of course, in a mating herd!
 |
"Jemp has a couple more scars now," says Sheri Barton, a researcher at Mote Marine Laboratory. "Here he is in a mating herd near Casey Key, as he usually seems to be lately."
(Photo credit: Mote Marine Laboratory, Sheri W. Barton)
|
Get More Info!
|
|
