News

Alabama/DISL Adoption Update

By Dr. Ruth Carmichael, Director, DISL,
& Sophia Corde, PhD Student, University of South Alabama and DISL

The warm waters and vegetation make the summer months in the northern Gulf a preferred habitat for many manatees. This summer we have seen high numbers of manatees all along the Alabama coast, from Gulf waters along Orange Beach and Gulf Shores to inshore rivers, including the Mobile-Tensaw Delta and Dog River. Manatees are being reported by many new and repeat reporters to the Dauphin Island Sea Lab’s Manatee Sighting Network (DISL/MSN). Adoptable Alabama manatees, Bama and Clog, have not made their appearance yet this summer, and we are keeping a lookout with every photo submitted to our network. Your contributions help us track our Alabama manatees!

As always, we continue to promote awareness of manatee presence in the northern Gulf through outreach efforts, including providing Save the Manatee Club manatee awareness dock signs to anyone who would like to display them on the water. This summer, DISL/MSN researchers worked to document the location of manatee dock signs along the entire southern Alabama coast to better understand how these signs raise awareness of manatees and the effectiveness of this outreach and education effort. The team spent many hours on the water and located more than one hundred dock signs along our coast! Most of the signs were located along Dog River, a favorite manatee habitat and a popular recreational boating spot for locals. With manatees present throughout the southeastern U.S. this time of year, we continue to encourage everyone to practice safe boating around manatees, including the use of polarized sunglasses, obeying no wake zones, keeping a lookout for manatees, and reporting manatee sightings in the northern Gulf to our sighting network at manatee.disl.edu.