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Welcoming our winter visitors
As temperatures drop, lumbering manatees come into Tampa Bay seeking warmth in coastal waters. Would you know one if you saw one?
By ALLISON E. HOLDER
© St. Petersburg Times
published January 21, 2002
[Times photo: Bill Serne 1996]
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What animal weighs more than 1,000 pounds and is gray and wrinkly and sometimes covered with barnacles? What mysterious winter visitor to Florida is sometimes referred to as a sea cow and likes to graze on more than 100 pounds of vegetation per day?
If you can't answer these easy riddles then you obviously need to learn more about manatees, especially because they died in near record numbers last year. One of the best ways to learn about, and even protect, a species, is by getting to know the creatures in person.
The winter waters of Tampa Bay provide some of the world's best manatee habitats. One local manatee observation area is in St. Petersburg along Coffee Pot Boulevard starting at the Snell Isle Bridge. At the junction of 23rd Street NE and Coffee Pot Boulevard NE, water runoff from a pipe in the seawall attracts manatees.
Manatees love the warm waters of Florida just like humans do. Keeping warm is hard for these gentle giants because despite their weight, they don't have a lot of blubber, like other marine mammals, and their bodies don't generate a lot of heat because of their low metabolism.
When the water temperature drops below about 68 degrees, manatees move into the shallow, warmer gulf coastal waters, rivers and springs. Luckily for us, manatees seek this warmer harbor from late October through February.
If you were going for a walk along the water in these winter months, would you recognize a manatee if you saw one? Well, this may help:
Manatees are big marine mammals with two front flippers that act like arms and a powerful spatula-shaped tail. These animals are usually about 9 to 10 feet long. Their wrinkled skin is gray or gray-brown and sometimes provides a good home for barnacles.
Manatees do not usually swim in herds, unless they are congregating in warm water; they generally are seen alone, or a cow will travel with her calf. Manatees have a very strict diet, vegetation only please, and let them fend for themselves. As with other wild animals, humans should not feed them, because feeding them can create an unnatural dependence and put them closer to deadly boat propellers.
Manatees are mammals, so they need to breathe through their noses every few minutes when playing and 10-15 minutes when resting.
Some lucky kids already have had the experience of seeing a manatee in the wild. "I was on my dock and then I saw the nose, and it looked like an alligator. It was kind of scary," said Heather Monych, 10, a fourth-grader at Center Academy in Pinellas Park who recently moved to a home on Coffee Pot Bayou.
Manatees poke their nostrils above the surface to breathe and are often mistaken for alligators. Should you spot such a nose, be patient because the manatee likely will resurface; the average interval between breaths is two to three minutes. You might even see more than the nose. "I saw the tail," said Gordon Monych, Heather's twin brother.
Sometimes the manatee's identity is not so obvious. Some people just report seeing an oval ring in the water. The motion of the manatee's paddle-shaped tail creates a swirl or flat spot on the water when it dives or swims. By watching the ring you'll eventually see the manatee's nose or tail breaking the surface.
"It looked almost like a rock," said Ryan Waterman, 10, a fourth-grader at St. Paul's Catholic School in St. Petersburg. That rock was probably the manatee's back sticking out of the water. Ryan reports that a friend pointed out the manatee, which helped him to see it. More experienced manatee watchers may hear the sound of a manatee breathing, a quick exhaling sound. "I was out in my kayak and it was around Christmas," said Maria Tridas, 12, a sixth-grader at St. Raphael's. "The manatee came up to me and was playing around by rolling on its stomach. I watched him for a long time."
There are places around the Tampa Bay area to see manatees in the wild, including Crystal River and Tampa Electric Company's Big Bend power plant. The power plant's warm water discharge is an attractive winter place to observe manatees, from a boardwalk and observation area provided by the electric company.
Quietly observing manatees offers a rare opportunity to see the natural behavior of this unique animal. The key word is observation. Resist the urge to feed manatees or give them water. "Look, but don't touch" is the best policy; any other actions might be considered harassment, which is against the law.
The Florida manatee is still on the endangered species list and is protected by state and federal law. Last year, 325 manatees died in Florida, the second highest death rate, up from 273 deaths in 2000. Eighty-one of the 2001 deaths are attributed to speeding boaters, and the stress of cold weather accounted for more than 30 deaths.
Scientists counted 3,276 manatees in Florida in early 2001, the highest count ever, but the increasing mortality rate concerns environmentalists and other manatee advocates.
You can learn more about manatees on the Web site of the Save the Manatee Club (www.savethemanatee.org). Once you've seen a manatee in the wild, you'll likely become an advocate, too. So put on a good pair of sneakers, grab your polarized sunglasses, binoculars and camera and head out to see a manatee.
- Information from St. Petersburg Times files was used in this story.
-- Allison E. Holder, 13, is in the seventh grade at St. Raphael's Catholic School in St. Petersburg.
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