News

Alabama/DISL Adoption Update

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

2024 has been an exciting year for manatee sightings in the northern Gulf of Mexico. Manatee sighting reports to the Dauphin Island Sea Lab’s Manatee Sighting Network (DISL/MSN) were at an all-time high in the middle of the summer but declined in August and September as manatees travel back east to Florida for the winter. Most August and September sightings have come from Alabama’s coastal waters, along Gulf Shores and Orange Beach. We continue to look for Save the Manatee Club adoptee Bama with each sighting report; however, she has yet to make an appearance.

Our tagged manatee Sanford is still hanging out north of Mobile Bay in the Mobile-Tensaw River Delta. We continue to track reports of TexasTeeMiguel, whose tag is offline. If you happen to spot a tagged manatee, please call our sighting hotline at 866-493-5803 or submit a report online at savethemanatee.org/sightingnetwork. Sightings of tagged animals can be valuable to locate animals with malfunctioning gear and to verify the effectiveness of community-sourced data.