River City Manatee

Friday, October 30, 2009

The James River is brimming with aquatic life (including a giant catfish we wrote about a while back) but when a manatee was spotted last week swimming near downtown Richmond, we could have been on our way to having a revised contender for the new baseball team name.
 
Sgt. Joe Owen spotted the mammal while he was off duty and enjoying a bass fishing trip near the I-95 interstate bridge, just a ways up from Rocketts Landing. According to reports, he estimated that the manatee was approximately 8-feet long and weighed between 700 and 1000 pounds. In total, the manatee was spotted on three different occasions. Richmond’s last visiting manatee swam by in 2002.
 
Native to Florida, manatees are endangered species that live in freshwater, though they can also travel in salt and brackish waters. In the summer months, the highest north they are commonly found is Georgia. The manatee sightings in Richmond, then, make the visit not only in unusual territory, but also an out-of-season adventure.
 
To better understand why a manatee would make an appearance so far away from home, I talked with Chuck Underwood, a Public Information Officer with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Jacksonville, Florida, which also serves as the lead office for Florida Manatee Recovery and Conservation.
 
Underwood confirmed that since the sightings on Oct. 21, no other manatees have been seen in the Richmond area, and the animal was certainly not a pet released into the river, which some people were suggesting.
 
“What we’re seeing is an increasing number of animals moving up the East Coast,” Underwood says. “We don’t know for certain why these animals are doing this. We do know that recent reports counted [a total of] 3800 manatees in the population. That’s well over double what the minimum population was in 1973. So, when you have a population that’s expanding, it’s not uncommon for animals to move further and further out.”
 
Underwood pointed out that manatees live in water with temperatures of 60 degrees Fahrenheit and above. Perhaps with the recent warm weather “the animal may have gone up river, hung out in the water and since started moving south.”
 
Curious to know the exact location of the sighting, I asked Underwood if he could tell me. Due to the animal’s federal protection, however, he quickly informed me that though they are aware of the manatee’s precise location, they are not able to provide that information.
 
Good news for the manatee who hopefully is safely swimming home to warmer waters.