News

Manatees On The Mend

By Cora Berchem, Director of Multimedia and Manatee Research Associate

Manatee Kee’s story began in April 2009, when she was rescued as an orphaned calf by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission in the Withlacoochee River on Florida’s Gulf Coast. She was taken to ZooTampa at Lowry Park for rehabilitation, where she met Della and Della’s calf Pal.

Della, born in 2001, belongs to one of the longest recorded manatee genealogies at Blue Spring, going back to her great-grandmother Dawn, who was one of the first female manatees to be identified at Blue Spring. Della was rescued due to a watercraft injury in 2009 and taken to ZooTampa for rehabilitation. Save the Manatee Club (SMC) Manatee Specialist, Wayne Hartley, informed ZooTampa staff that Della may be pregnant and an excited email the next day confirmed the birth of her calf Pal.

Rescuers hoped Della would live long enough to give Pal a good start, and luckily, she made a quick recovery. After a month in rehabilitation, Kee was released along with Della, who had become her surrogate mom, and Pal, in the St. Johns River near Palatka. Since many rescued small calves do not have any identifying marks, Kee received what is called a freeze brand with the letter “R” to help with future re-identification.

Unfortunately, while Della and her natural calf Pal remained together once back in the wild, Kee somehow became separated. However, Kee proved to be an extremely persistent little calf and followed other nursing females. She was seen just before the winter season with manatee Granger and her calf in the St. Johns River and came into the protected warm-water sanctuary of Blue Spring with manatee Park and her calf. Throughout the winter, Kee nursed on various mothers at Blue Spring and left with Calista and her calf on March 24, 2010.

Since 2009, release and post-release monitoring protocols have significantly changed. A small calf like Kee would not be released with an unrelated female adult, even if the calf bonded with her during rehabilitation. Now, juvenile or inexperienced manatees are always outfitted with a satellite tracking device, which allows researchers to monitor them post-release.

Kee was not seen again until researchers from the Clearwater Marine Aquarium Research Institute (CMARI) photographed her in November 2012 at a spring north of Blue Spring and identified her via her freeze brand “R.” Researchers from CMARI consistently saw Kee each year at various springs they monitor in the St. Johns River, noting her with her own firstborn calf during the winter of 2014-15 and a subsequent calf throughout January 2018.

Not knowing what Kee looked like as an adult with scars on her right side near the peduncle (where the body meets the tail) and with the freeze brand almost completely faded, SMC researchers didn’t recognize her when she returned to Blue Spring in March 2019. Assuming she was an unknown manatee, she was given a Blue Spring ID number (BS1081) and named “Rhonda.” Rhonda had a calf in 2020 and continued to visit Blue Spring every winter.

It wasn’t until the summer of 2024, when SMC and CMARI researchers shared photos from the respective springs they monitor, that CMARI researchers made the match—Rhonda and Kee were the same manatee! Not only was Kee still alive and well, but she had used Blue Spring and other northern springs for winter refuge since her release. She was re-sighted back at another northern spring in early 2024, showing the importance of a network of natural warm-water sites for manatees to use during the cold winter months.

We hope to continue seeing Kee for many years at Blue Spring and other local springs. Della’s calf, Pal, has not been identified since he became an adult, but we continue to monitor Della, who has had many more calves since.

This is an amazing story of not only the resiliency of a manatee calf learning how to be a wild manatee, but also of the dedication and meticulous work of the research teams collaborating on photo-ID efforts. While most of the field work documenting manatees takes place in the winter, hundreds of hours during the summer months are spent logging, cataloging, and comparing data—a behind-the-scenes part of our work that many people don’t get to see.