News

Blue Spring State Park Adoption Update

By Wayne Hartley, Manatee Specialist

Since my last update in The Manatee Zone, Phyllis was in on July 17 and Annie on September 7.*

For this update, I thought I would describe a manatee roll call at Blue Spring for those not familiar with how we conduct one during the season. Before we head to the park, we get the river temperature online from Whitehair Bridge, just west of Deland. We arrive at the park before 8 a.m. The high and low air temperatures for the past 24 hours are pulled from a weather station at the park administration building and then converted into Celsius from Fahrenheit (science prefers metric measurements over imperial ones).

Next, we launch the canoe and paddle up the spring run. The run is divided into transects that are used to locate the position of the manatees. At the start, we also note how far the dark river water has intruded along the bottom of the run. The colder the river is, the farther the intrusion reaches. While we paddle, we identify the manatees we can and count the rest. As we record the manatees, we film and draw them. When we reach the spring boil, the roll call is over. On the way back down the run, we continue to identify and film manatees, but those sightings do not go on the roll call. If we kept adding to the roll call, we would be there all day!

Once complete, we pull still pictures from the films to include in our manatee catalogue. If we find a distressed manatee, we call the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and keep watch until the rescue team arrives—then we assist with the rescue.

*Note: Since this article was written, there have been additional adoptee sightings.