Fourteen years ago, I wrote about going to see the manatees at Blue Spring State Park in Orange City, Florida. On that January day, I thought 299 manatees were a lot. We went to see them again today, and the ranger station tote board announced a count of 677. Cold water, cool air, and overcast skies make for great manatee viewing. By the time we got there in the late morning, it wasn’t as cold as the last few days, and some of the manatees had already begun their slow float back to the St. John’s river.
A healthy crowd of locals and tourists came to see the manatees today. The popularity of manatees is an interesting phenomena. They aren’t much to look at. They don’t do anything. They just float around, coming up for air once in a while. Yet we paused at four or five viewing platforms to watch these big gray blobs float by.
Manatees have state and federal protection. According to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission website, “It is illegal to feed, harass, harm, pursue, hunt, shoot, wound, kill, annoy, or molest manatees.”
Several organizations allow you to adopt a manatee. If you do, carefully maintained scar records enable you to pick out your manatee among all the others in the spring.
According to signs at the state park, manatees have no natural predators other than people. Boat propellers and trash are enough of a threat to earn them a spot on endangered species lists and have their own awareness month (November).
Favorite zoo animal? Typical answers include elephant, lion or tiger, and the giraffes. But when the manatees show up at the spring, we drop everything to go and see them. Their natural charisma makes them irresistible.
Waite for it... 