WaterNotes

The cold weather continues to gravely effect wildlife populations in the state of Florida, especially in the case of manatees. SeaWorld Orlando brought in another cold stressed juvenile today and Tampa’s Lowry Park Zoo and the Miami Seaquarium have also been quite active in the past two weeks coordinating with Fish and Wildlife to locate, [...]

Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission’s research institute said today that over 100 manatee carcasses were documented in Florida waters following the cold snap during the first half of January.  A full 77 of the deaths are currently attributed to cold stress with several losses of  perinatal (or newborn) calves.   This count beats last [...]

The annual synoptic aerial survey for manatees in state of Florida waters came in officially yesterday with a whopping all-time high count of the cows: 5,067!!
This  is a staggering (and exciting) jump in population numbers from last year’s all-time high by over 1,200 individuals. While the survey will not be finalized (and thus truly official) [...]

I was probably a manatee in a past life. How do I know?  I won’t SCUBA dive into anything other than warm sauna-like conditions and I eat a lot of salads.  Ok, perhaps this isn’t the most convincing of arguments, but these marine mammals are my favorite in the world, as regular WaterNotes readers well [...]

2009 was not a good year for the sea cows. The Florida Fish and Widlife Commission released its preliminary report on manatee mortality in state waters today and revealed that the past season had a record high loss of manatees in state waters: 429!
The report briefly breaks down totals with some eye-opening revelations for [...]