News

Manatees On The Mend

By Cora Berchem, Director of Multimedia and Manatee Research Associate

The winter months are always a very busy season for manatee rescues and releases. In addition to the “usual” reasons for rescues, such as watercraft injuries, entanglements, and orphaned calves, winter brings many cold stress cases. January was an unseasonably cold month that even saw snow in some parts of northern Florida, making it intolerable for manatees without a warm-water habitat to stay in.

At Blue Spring, we assisted with a cold stress rescue on December 20. Our partners rescued several cold stressed manatees along both Florida coasts (as well as in Alabama) throughout the winter. In mid-January, a mom/calf pair was rescued in a residential canal in Jacksonville. The mom and her male calf went to SeaWorld Orlando for rehabilitation. Our research team was able to match the mother to a known Blue Spring manatee named Taffy, who we first saw at Blue Spring in 2022. We were wondering where she was this season! In early February, we assisted with the rescue of a small, orphaned calf at Blue Spring. That calf joined a manatee rescued in Crystal River for cold stress syndrome at a rehab facility in Myakka operated by the Bishop Museum of Science and Nature.

Our partners also conducted the first successful rescue of a manatee in North Carolina near Greenville in November. The manatee was brought to SeaWorld in a transport truck and fortunately made a speedy recovery. The photo identification record showed her having wintered at the Tampa Electric Company (TECO) Apollo Beach power plant before, so the decision was made to release her there in January. She was nicknamed Pamlico!

Manatees that are rescued as orphans or for cold stress syndrome are released at the end of the winter during a cold front at a warm-water site. This may sound counterintuitive at first, but these manatees, usually considered ‘naïve,’ need to distinguish between cold and warm water and learn migration routes. Therefore, they are released into a warm-water aggregation site with hundreds of other manatees with the hope that they will learn from the other manatees. The released manatees are outfitted with satellite tracking devices for the first year of their lives in the wild so researchers can monitor their movements. In February, we assisted with the releases of Carditee, Ashley, Calliope, and Azalea at Blue Spring—all were rescued as small orphans. Plus, on the other coast, several manatees were released in Crystal River and at the TECO Apollo Beach power plant.

The manatees we helped release at Blue Spring last season and the season before have all returned! It is great to see them doing well. Manatee Lilpeep, who was released in 2023 and rerescued in 2024 for cold stress and a watercraft injury, was released back at Blue Spring in mid-November. We saw him in late December, joining a large aggregation of manatees in the spring.

Amelia, a manatee we helped release in 2021 at Blue Spring, is believed to be pregnant, which is exciting because it would be her first calf! She still hangs out with her pal Irma, with whom she was rehabbed and released. This is highly unusual, as manatees usually part ways shortly after release, but these two still meet up each winter and hang out together.

Our rehabilitation partners have been hard at work. SeaWorld Orlando is currently caring for over 40 manatees, and ZooTampa is caring for over 20. Several manatees were rescued after hurricanes Helene and Milton and are still recovering at ZooTampa. We were able to visit them twice this winter and also delivered some items donated from our Amazon wish list for the team, who are always very excited to receive these supplies. Other second-stage facilities are also filling up with manatees who no longer need critical care but still have some growing to do. They are a lifesaving addition to the manatee rehabilitation system, as they open space at critical care facilities that are needed to accommodate the increasing number of manatee rescues during the winter months.