News

Blue Spring State Park Adoption Update

By Wayne Hartley, Manatee Specialist

The last manatee season began on November 23, 2024, and ended on March 25, 2025. The first and only Save the Manatee Club adoptee on day one was Moo Shoo. Rocket was the only adoptee on the last day of the season. In between those dates, our adoptees made many appearances, and I like to think of it as a race for who had the most visits.

Phyllis was in first, and Aqua was in second. Phyllis and Aqua had calves, and a female with a calf usually wins the race because they seem to prefer the sanctuary of the spring. Lily was in fourth. She had no calf, but she is always in the running. But Ester, who also had a calf, was down in fourteenth place—her exception just proves the rule!

Gator, the male attendance champion, bumped Lily from third, but he’s a regular even during the summer. Gator was even the overall attendance champion in a previous year. Of late, the winner usually has around 36 visits, but now here is Phyllis with 51! The award for Tail-End Charlie was a tie between Annie and Merlin. Annie did not show up at the run until March 2, so 10 visits was good for her. Merlin is one of the old guard that has started spending their time in other springs. Brutus and Flash are in that group too, but they did visit Blue Spring 23 and 19 times, respectively. Lenny did not make an appearance at Blue Spring or any other monitored springs, which is concerning because he has never missed a season.

The number of adoptee visits is an indicator of how the entire season went. Most roll calls take no more than two pages in my research notebook. This season, day after day, the roll calls ran onto three or four pages. I had to buy a new book for the overflow!