Posted on 01/04/2007 4:38:24 PM PST by mcg2000
CORPUS CHRISTI — Officials were trying to nurse a manatee back to health in an aquarium today, the day after using a net and crane to hoist it from warm waters near a Citgo refinery.
It was the first time one of the endangered animals was rescued by wildlife officials off the Texas coast, far from the warm waters they usually frequent off Florida and Mexico.
"I would say it was in probably critical condition," said Allan Strand, field supervisor for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in South Texas. "It was not difficult to rescue. It was hugging the shoreline."
Strand said the manatee was clinging to a shallow area warmed to about 75 degrees by outflows from a Citgo oil refinery. The surrounding waters are about 59 degrees, too cold for the creatures that lack insulating blubber beneath the skin.
Citgo spokesman David McCollum said oil-free water was going through the outflow.
"It's a clean outflow that just happens to be warmer," McCollum said. "That's why he found our outflow."
Strand said the manatee was an underweight adult measuring 9 feet 10 inches and weighing about 600 pounds. He said officials had not yet identified its gender. It was being cared for at the Texas State Aquarium's Sea Lab.
"It's doing well in the tank," he said. "They're feeding it lettuce and things like that."
Manatees are typically rare off the Texas coast, but they've been seen more frequently in recent years. Since South Texas hasn't had a prolonged freeze in years, Strand said his department has seen two to four a year off Coastal Bend waters for the past six years.
He said this was the aquarium's first attempt to rehabilitate a manatee.
Strand said officials hope to eventually transfer the manatee to Florida.
The big guy was hanging out in the warm waters by the refinery. Kinda like when I take warm towels out of the dryer. Kids and cats appear to snuggle up under the pile. There is nothing like that feeling!
Grad school. Introduced species were a hot topic in the marine sciences.
ROFLMAO!
From Wikipedia:
Manatees typically inhabit warm, shallow, coastal estuarine waters. Manatees often congregate near power plants, which warm the waters. Some have become reliant on this source of unnatural heat and have ceased migrating to warmer waters. Some power plants have recently been closing and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is trying to find a new way to heat the water for these manatees.
The main water treatment plant in Guyana has four manatees that keep storage canals clear of weeds.
The natural source for warm waters for manatees during the winter is spring fed rivers. The West Indian Manatee migrates into Florida rivers such as the Crystal River, The Homosassa River and The Chassawohitzka River. The head springs of these rivers maintain a water temperature of 72 degrees year round. During the winter months, November to March, approximately 400 West Indian Manatees (According to the National Wildlife Refuge Service) congregate in the rivers in Citrus County, Florida.
Manatees have been spotted as far north as Cape Cod, and as recently as the late summer of 2006, one made it up to New York City and Rhode Island's Narragansett Bay, as cited by the Boston Globe. According to Memphis, Tennessee's Commercial Appeal newspaper, one manatee was spotted in the Wolf River harbor near the Mississippi River in downtown Memphis, Tennessee, on October 23, 2006, though it was later found ten miles downriver in McKellar Lake.[5]
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