Here’s a feel-good story for the start of summer. Two deputies in Florida held a manatee’s head up out of the water for more than two hours, keeping it from drowning, before help arrived and ultimately set it free back in the water. The Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office gave this account of the manatee rescue: Deputy Jill Constant got a call recently, when the red tide levels were high, from a woman saying that a manatee was in distress in the Intracoastal Waterway. The animal was trying to beach itself on some rocks on Shell Key Preserve, about 11 miles…

The Save the Manatees organization just posted a new video of a herd of the big friendly mammals gathering in Blue Spring State Park in Florida for mating season. You can see it via the link here: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=964779371542876 Save the Manatees said they counted more than 30 manatees last week at Blue Spring, about halfway between Orlando and Daytona Beach, for the cool water and their annual mating ritual. During mating season, a female manatee is generally pursued by as many as half a dozen males and the female (cow) will mate with several males (bulls) to provide the largest…

Florida manatees, particularly those in the 156-mile-long Indian River Lagoon that stretches from the Ponce de León Inlet up to Cape Canaveral, have been dying in record numbers as pollution destroys their food supply. But this year, in an experiment to save them, federal and state wildlife officials (helped by $116,000 donations from the public) have been feeding them lettuce, lots of lettuce. It turns out the slow-moving mammals love the stuff. In the first three months of this year, they ate 202,000 pounds of lettuce, including romaine. And during those months, January, February and March, manatee deaths fell to…

Florida’s manatees are dying in record numbers, and it seems that some of them are malnourished and even starving. “If this continues through the rest of the year, this is going to be one of the highest mortality years ever,” said Jon Moore, a marine biologist at Florida Atlantic University. A new report from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission recorded 761 manatee deaths from January 1 to May 28, representing more than 10 percent of the entire manatee population, and more than the total number of deaths for all of last year. Scientists say the total deaths could…

Manatees are returning to Florida for the winter, so boaters need to be extra careful to avoid the huge, slow-moving creatures. Adult manatees are about ten feet long and weigh 1,000 pounds, and they like to swim just below the surface, so they are very susceptible to injury from passing boats. They also are slow, usually swimming at just 3 to 5 mph, although they can go as fast as 20 mph in short bursts. The gentle sea cows are creatures of habit, often returning to the same place year after year. They gather in Florida from November through March…

So far, it’s shaping up as a bad year for manatees in Florida. Indeed, 86 have been hit and killed by boats in just the first six months of the year, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. If that rate continues, the number of manatee deaths will set a new record. Boats killed 122 manatees in Florida last year. If the current pace continues, that number will grow to 172 this year. The greatest number of boat-caused manatee deaths so far this year – 21 – has been in Lee County, the Fort Meyers, Sanibel and Captiva…

Along with the snowbirds, manatees have returned to Florida. Manatee season just started, meaning the manatee slow-speed zones are now in effect throughout the state. Here’s a great story from Southern Boating about the return of these gentle, slow-moving mammals, and what cruisers can do to protect them: They’re baaaaak! Sunday is the official start of the manatee season. That means that slow-speed regulations in South Florida’s network of waterways take effect. Manatees can’t tolerate water temperatures below 68 degrees (much like the other snowbirds that join us around this time of year), which is why the gentle giants swim south…