News

Coastal Adoption Update

By Cora Berchem, Director of Multimedia and Manatee Research Associate

With the weather cooling and the Florida winter approaching, manatees are traveling back to their warm-water wintering sites. Hopefully, this should also result in some more coastal adoptee sightings! It has been another quiet quarter for our coastal adoptees—once again, only Millie made an appearance, spotted in the Silver River on September 15.

Earlier this year, Save the Manatee Club launched a set of brand-new webcams at Silver Springs State Park, and our research team has been keeping a close eye out for any sightings of Millie on the cameras, in addition to other sightings our partners share with us. We have recorded quite a few sightings of other manatees on the cameras over the past months that were shared with other researchers for photo-ID. Winter is usually the best time for us and our partners to get sighting updates when manatees gather in large groups at springs or power plants. Photo-ID efforts are conducted by land, plane, canoe or kayak, and, more recently, drones. We hope to provide some sighting updates in early 2025!