Manatees FLORIDA WATERWAYS

In the cold snap we recently had in North Florida, one of the animals who has suffered is the manatee. The fully aquatic mammals, which are sometimes called “sea cows,” can grow to over thirteen feet in length and weigh over 1,300 pounds. Their paddlelike tails propel them ever so slowly through the warm waters of our springs.

By

One of the refugees established in North Florida for the protection of the endangered West Indian Manatee is Crystal River National Wildlife Refuge on the west coast of Florida below Cedar Key. Established in 1983, the refuge preserves an undeveloped habitat in Kings Bay near the headwaters of Crystal River. The refuge attracts thousands of visitors in the cold winter months, as people can take boat tours and even rent kayaks to get close to the marvelous animals.

The two dozen natural springs that feed into Kings Bay maintain a constant temperature of 72 degrees Fahrenheit (22 degrees Celsius) that the gentle giants thrive in. They cannot survive if the water temperature is below 60 °F. Their natural source for warmth during winter is warm, spring-fed rivers. One can swim or snorkel with the manatees, but people should not feed or touch the animals, which could lose their natural fear of humans and of boats, which can do terrible damage to the backs of lumbering manatees too slow to avoid speedboats.

Another popular place to view manatees is Manatee Springs State Park, which is six miles west of Chiefland on S.R. 320 off U.S. 19. The first-magnitude spring there flows directly into the Suwannee River and can often have far fewer visitors than the more popular Crystal River National Wildlife Refuge. The great English travel writer William Bartram (1739–1823) gave the present name to the springs after he saw a carcass of a manatee on the shoreline.

The gentle giants spend half the day sleeping underwater, but come up for air every 15 minutes or so. The animals in our Florida waters can go between fresh and salt water without any bad results. Of the estimated 13,000 West Indian manatees in existence, some six thousand or more are in Florida waters. There is a long tradition in exploratory literature that equates manatees with mermaids, but that premise is a little hard to believe.

Because Florida manatees are dying in alarming numbers because of a lack of acceptable vegetation, local officials have begun distributing some twenty thousand pounds of romaine and leaf lettuce each week to the animals in different parts of Florida. Let’s hope that most of the manatees survive our cold winter. They have certainly brought much pleasure to visitors and residents alike.

Kevin McCarthy, the author of North Florida Waterways (2013 - available at amazon.com), can be reached at ceyhankevin@gmail.com.