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Mo the manatee fears to stray
By ALEX LEARY and BARBARA BEHRENDT CRYSTAL RIVER -- Dragged from the back of a Ryder truck, down a metal ramp and onto cold concrete, big Mo did not even wince. "We've got our fingers crossed on this guy," Bob Bonde of the U.S. Geological Survey's Sirenia Project said, overlooking the docile manatee as scientists prepared to release it into Kings Bay on Wednesday. He seems to approve of the new digs. Satellite tracking data on Thursday indicated Mo had strayed only a few hundred feet. The spring this week was full of manatees and researchers say that should keep Mo from straying very far. That would be a relief, for Mo is no ordinary manatee. Found orphaned in the Withlacoochee River in 1994, he was taken into captivity for several years before being released in Kings Bay in April 1998. A month later, he vanished, later to be found near the Dry Tortugas. "He would have eventually died," Bonde said. But researchers tracked Mo down and once again brought him into captivity. His last home was Lowry Park Zoo in Tampa. Bigger, stronger and, hopefully, wiser, Mo was brought to the boat ramp at Port Hotel & Marina on Wednesday. After taking numerous weight measurements, scientists fitted him with a satellite transmitter and then lugged him into the back of a boat. "One, two, three," the scientists chanted after arriving at a manatee sanctuary off Banana Island. "One, two, three. One, two, three." And then Mo, all 1,095 pounds of him, was gone. Mo wasn't the only manatee with local ties scheduled for release this week. Weather permitting, Lowry Park Zoo officials were hoping to release Stormy today in Blue Springs State Park in Orange City on Florida's East Coast. Stormy was born at the Miami Seaquarium in 1985 and moved to Homosassa Springs Wildlife State Park a year later with his mother, Ariel. In December 1990, he was moved to Lowry Park Zoo after park officials suspected he had bred with his grandmother Amanda. If that is true, he is the mother of Betsy, who is also his aunt. Both Ariel and Betsy still live at the park in Homosassa Springs. There was a time when animals like Mo and Stormy might not have been considered for release into the wild. Stormy's sister Sunrise was one of the first two captive-bred and born animals released in Florida in the late 1980s. The experiment was considered unsuccessful when no trace of the animals, which had distinctive freeze brands, were ever found. For a while, federal wildlife officials balked at releasing other captive-born manatees. But since that time about 40 manatees either born in captivity or taken from the wild shortly after birth have been released in Florida, according to Jim Valade, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist in Jacksonville. About 75 percent of those so-called "naive" animals have done well in the wild at least partly because the facilities that now rehabilitate them have done a good job of preparing them for life outside captivity, Valade said. A key part of that has been introducing them to the kinds of plant life they will encounter when they are released. Officials have also learned that they should release manatees during the winter months since that allows them to learn where the warm-water areas which are crucial to their winter survival are located. It also allows them to migrate out with larger numbers of other manatees from whom they may learn some survival skills. Another local animal's history demonstrates the importance of that early training. An infant manatee injured in a boat collision in the Chassahowitzka River in 1990 was raised in captivity and released into the Homosassa River in 1997. Known as Rachel, the manatee was very friendly toward humans. Eventually she had to be moved into the Chassahowitzka River for her protection. There she returns year after year, at least once with a new calf. Valade said it is now certain that it is the best wintering grounds for the animal. That shows how strong is the original geographic message given to manatees reared in captivity and finally released in the wild, he said. Mo's original release was in April 1998, a time of year thought to be less stressful to manatees. But instead of knowing where to go at that time of year when far fewer manatees are in area waters, he ended up off course and headed to the Dry Tortugas. "It became blatantly obvious to us that we needed to do these releases in the winter," Valade said. That was one of the lessons drawn from Mo's release in April 1998. Valade and others believe he drifted away because there were few other manatees in the area. "I just hope it stays cold enough that it keeps him in the bay," said veterinarian Mark Lowe, who described the 9 1/2-foot, 1,095-pound Mo as in good shape, if a bit fat. He should lose about 100 pounds in the wild. Without a splash, Mo slipped into the shallow spring water to the cheers of a crowd of some 20 researchers. The yellow tip of his torpedo-shaped transmitter bobbed above the surface and slowly moved from the boat. "We hope we never see him again," one of the Lowry Park Zoo workers said.
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