Manatee Party!

[CarolinaKat]

www.thedodo.com/300-manatees-close-refuge-969881089.html

When a herd of 300 manatees comes swimming into your spring, there's not much to do but sit back and watch them float by.

At the Crystal Rivers National Wildlife Refuge in Crystal River, Florida, staff and volunteers found out just how many West Indian manatees could cram themselves into a spring this week. The park was forced to close down on Monday when a whopping 300 of the mammoth animals flooded in. For context, the normal manatee population in the area is 65.

I had no idea that they ever congregated like that!!!

[Deleted]

I just called the tour place and they said they generally only close for an hour or so, but it doesn't interfere.

[milee]

Yup. That's why I recommended Oped check it out on her way to Universal. Very cool.

BTW, I'm into nature conservation so that's how I approach things.  That said, I disagree with the people who worry that the presence of people stresses or harms the manatees.  I live a couple of hours south of Crystal River and we have manatees around here year round; tons in the spring, summer and fall and a few during the colder times.  So we're often in the water with wild (funny using that term in connection with something that's about as "wild" as a 10 year old pet dairy cow) manatees - not purposefully but just when we get in the water they're around so we encounter them.  About 1/3 are shy and avoid people, about 1/3 are neutral and seem to ignore people and 1/3 seem to be actively curious and want to interact.  The 1/3 that are shy just swim away.  The 1/3 that are neutral act like they don't even notice the person.  But the 1/3 that are curious/friendly actually seem to seek out people to approach, touch, look at and hang with.  People in the water have nothing that would be tempting to a manatee (manatees only eat veggies like sea grass and lettuce so it's not like the people who slip the dolphins bait fish to entice them), so it's pretty clear that the curious ones really are there for the interaction.  My favorite was a few years ago when I was sailing with a small group of 7 year olds.  We stopped at a sand bar in the middle of the bay and while we were splashing around in the waist deep water, a manatee swam up.  I explained to the kids that if it approached them, they could gently touch it (and where to touch it) but that they needed to be respectful, careful and definitely not chase it if it swam away.  Not only didn't it swim away, it kept getting right in the middle of the group, wanting us to rub it.  It seemed very curious about the kids and wanted to put its snout right up to the kids' face to check them out.  We were there for about an hour and the manatee hung out with the kids the entire time. 

[CarolinaKat]

I think it would be really neat to see. I got to see them in the wild when I was a kid, but not since my great Aunt moved to Alaska!

[milee]

Feb 4, 2015 9:40:58 GMT -5 oped said:

I just called the tour place and they said they generally only close for an hour or so, but it doesn't interfere.

So you're thinking about going? Awesome!!!

[wyouser]

300 huh? See what a little advertising will do when you offer" Free"  T's for manatees!!          Ok Ok..  Sick comment..I get it...back to my chair in the corner!

[Deleted]

We LOVE manatees! We would have LOVED to see that!!!

[Deleted]

That was soooo freakin Awesome! So many. So close. They feel weird

[milee]

A little like elephant skin, right? Except they have those weird wiry whiskers and some of them have algae. They're weird and wonderful. Glad you did the swim.