News

Record Summer Sightings In The Northern Gulf

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.

More Recent News

A manatee rescued by DISL and MRP partners from the cold Alabama waters in early January. Photo courtesy of Dauphin Island Sea Lab.

First Rescue of the Year is in Alabama

The 2024-25 winter was busy for the Dauphin Island Sea Lab/Manatee Sighting Network, with the highest number of stranded manatee responses in Alabama history!

Millie at a power plant in Ft. Lauderdale. Photo courtesy of FWC, taken under USFWS permit MA773494.

Several Coastal Adoptees Surface This Winter

After several slow months, several coastal adoptees made appearances throughout the state as they traveled to their warm-water refuges!

Several wild manatees swim at Homosassa Springs in the shadow of our above-water webcam. Photo courtesy of Kate Spratt, Homosassa Springs Wildlife State Park.

The Ladies of Homosassa: Comfy in Their Heated Pools

The resident manatees have been spending the winter in their heated pools as wild manatees took refuge in the main spring.