Rhymes with Manatee

The sea cow, which we call the manatee,

Will never indulge in profanity.

He eats plants and grasses

In huge veggie masses

For health reasons and for his sanity.

Manatee charms on etsy and on ebay

A Manatee Moment

Lil Joe is a manatee who was plucked from a shallow river in Florida.  He'd been there, marooned and starving, for weeks.  He was so dehydrated and underweight that you could make out the bumps and knobs on his head.  You could count his ribs.

He was taken back to SeaWorld in Orlando, where he had been raised as an orphaned newborn.  And once there, he was reunited with Slip, who had been Lil Joe's aquarium mate. 

The two manatees met nearly 20 years ago and toured the country together.  A couple of years ago, they were set free together.

Some backstory:

Lil Joe was first rescued from the Halifax River near Daytona Beach on July 30, 1989.  He was only a few weeks old, and weighed 42 pounds.  Lil Joe was only a few weeks old and weighted 42 pounds. With his mother presumed dead, Lil Joe was taken to SeaWorld, where he was bottle-fed.

Slip was named after the marina spaces where boats dock.  He was born at SeaWorld on Nov. 22, 1991. His mother, Marina, had been rescued in 1979 and was SeaWorld's first bottle-raised calf. She died of complications three weeks after his birth.

The two orphans grew close, being raised in similar ways.  Biologists thought then that orphaned calves who had been reared in captivity would never learn the skills needed to survive in the wild. Instead they sent them off on a series of adventures, first to SeaWorld in San Diego and then to the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden, where they remained for four years.  By the end of their stay, Lil Joe wasn't so 'lil' anymore.  He weighed 1,950 pounds.

In 2009,Lil Joe and Slip were shipped to the Lowry Park Zoo in Tampa.  There, instead of a diet of 200 heads of restaurant-grade romaine lettuce each day, they were introduced to the kinds of river plants that manatees ordinarily eat.  They seemed to adapt well, and the biologists  were confident the two could be released.

So in February of 2010, they were set free at Blue Spring on the St. Johns River, a spot that attracts hundreds of manatees each winter. The two went their separate ways.  Perhaps they'd been aquarium mates for too long.

Lil Joe turned up a few months later, farther north in the St. Johns, where he was having difficulty dealing with the cold weather.  He was rescued, rehabbed and put back into the river several months later. Last year, as winter approached, he slipped out of his radio-tracking belt and disappeared. It was feared that he had died.

Slip, meanwhile, was hauled from Crescent Lake, which connects to the St. Johns River. He, too, was stressed by the cold.  He was taken back to SeaWorld Orlando, about 60 miles to the south.

It looked like Slip and Lil Joe would never romp together again.  Then, in August, a manatee appeared in the Little Econlockhatchee River — 25 miles upriver from the St. Johns, and a most unusual spot for a manatee. Eventually, a wildlife volunteer spotted an "R 5" brand on the his back, confirming it was Lil Joe. (Slip is "R 1.") State biologists suspected that the river had receded after the summer rains, trapping Lil Joe.

He weighed a mere 1,010 pounds.  For his length, he should have weighed st least 1,500 pounds. Gradually he was re-habbed, first with water, then with watered down mashed romaine lettuce and high-protein monkey chow.  A few thousand heads of romaine to go and Lil Joe should be back to a good weight.

And, once again, Lil Joe and Slip are doing their thing in Orlando.

Read the whole article: Back from the wild, 2 old pals reunite at SeaWorld by Kevin Spear

The Cincinnati Zoo followed their progress for several years.  You can read about it here.

Tracking Lil Joe here.

Manatee charms on etsy

Manatee charms on eBay

Fifteen Things You Probably Didn't Know About the Ocean

Children Writing About the Ocean. 

1) - This is a picture of an octopus. It has eight testicles. (Kelly, age 6) 

2) - Oysters' balls are called pearls. (Jerry, age 6) 

3) - If you are surrounded by ocean, you are an island. If you don't have ocean all round you, you are incontinent. (Mike, age 7) 

4) - Sharks are ugly and mean, and have big teeth, just like Emily 
Richardson. She's not my friend any more. (Kylie, age 6) 

5) - A dolphin breaths through an asshole on the top of its head. (Billy, age 8) 

6) - My uncle goes out in his boat with 2 other men and a woman and pots and comes back with crabs. (Millie, age 6) 

7) - When ships had sails, they used to use the trade winds to cross the ocean. Sometimes when the wind didn't blow the sailors would whistle to make the wind come. My brother said they would have been better off eating beans. (William, age 7) 

8) - Mermaids live in the ocean. I like mermaids. They are beautiful and I like their shiny tails, but how on earth do mermaids get pregnant? Like, really? (Helen, age 6) 

9) - I'm not going to write about the ocean. My baby brother is always crying, my Dad keeps yelling at my Mom, and my big sister has just got pregnant, so I can't think what to write. (Amy, age 6) 

10) - Some fish are dangerous. Jellyfish can sting. Electric eels can give you a shock. They have to live in caves under the sea where I think they have to plug themselves in to chargers. (Christopher, age 7) 

11) - When you go swimming in the ocean, it is very cold, and it makes my willy small. (Kevin, age 6) 

12) - Divers have to be safe when they go under the water. Divers can't go down alone, so they have to go down on each other. (Becky, age 8) 

13) - On vacation my Mom went water skiing. She fell off when she was going very fast. She says she won't do it again because water fired right up her big fat ass. (Julie, age 7) 

14) - The ocean is made up of water and fish. Why the fish don't drown I don't know. (Bobby, age 6) 

15) - My dad was a sailor on the ocean. He knows all about the ocean. What he doesn't know is why he quit being a sailor and married my mom. (James, age 7)

Some beadie thoughts on the ocean can be found on etsy.

Salad Fit for a Manatee

Of all the creatures in the sea
There's none quite like the manatee.
He swims along, amongst the fishes
Finding algae quite delicious.

One eats so much grass and clover,
He's still chomping when day's over.
With their big time chow adventures
You'd expect they would need dentures.

Adopt a manatee on etsy.

Rose the Rosy Manatee

by Cornerstoregoddess

There once was a pink manatee.
Her color was all you could see.

She always wore roses.
That's why, we supposes,

She swam in the West Floral Sea.

Rose the Manatee can be found here and here.

Manatees and Mermaids: How to Tell the Difference

Back in 1493, as Italian explorer Christopher Columbus sailed his ships near the Dominican Republic, he saw what he thought were three mermaids.  They were actually manatees, which explains why Columbus wrote that they were "not half as beautiful as they are painted."

Mermaids, the legendary creatures who are half fish/half female, have made their appearance in seafaring cultures dating back to the ancient Greeks.  They are said to have a woman's head and torso.  But instead of legs, they sport a fish tail. 

Here is a handy guide so that, when you see either a manatee or a mermaid, you will be able to tell the difference.

Mermaids are generally seen holding a mirror and comb.

Manatees are never seen holding a mirror and comb, though they might be wearing a barnacle or two.

 The life span of a mermaid is 300 years, after which she turns to sea foam.

The life span of a manatee is 50-60 years.

 In some legends and fairy tales, mermaids can take on a human shape and marry mortal men. 

Manatees are not big on marriage, and prefer to mate with other manatees.

The biggest danger to a mermaid is a handsome prince.

The biggest danger to a manatee is a boat.

A mermaid who marries a prince forever loses her ability to speak and sing.

 

Manatees who meet up with boats also lose their ability to speak and sing.

 

A mermaid is roughly the size and weight of a human.

 

An adult manatee is typically 10-12 feet long and weighs 800 to 1,200 pounds. 

 

 

Mermaids are vegetarians.  They mostly eat seaweed and algae.

Manatees are vegetarians, as well.  Be careful, because at a dinner party you might have trouble determining which is the manatee and which is the mermaid.

 

If you need to do further comparison, stop by my etsy and eBay stores.  You can ask the manatees and mermaids you find there. 

Chessie the Manatee Rides Again!

According to SoMsNews.com, a manatee was found swimming around at Flag Harbor Marina in St. Leonard Tuesday attracting crowds of onlookers.  The manatee surfaced every 10 or 15 minutes briefly to refill its lungs and stayed near the haul out dock for Flag Harbor Marine Services.

Submitted photo by Terry Trefry 

Florida biologists have confirmed that the manatee that visited Flag Harbor was Chessie, a manatee that was first rescued in Maryland 16 years ago and was last spotted in Virginia 10 years ago.  When Trefry of Long Beach, who took pictures of the manatee, researched manatees on the Internet, she learned about Chessie.  After viewing photos of the animal, which had a similar scar on its back, she thought it may be Chessie. Trefry contacted the National Aquarium Baltimore and emailed them photos.  The staff there forwarded them to a center in Florida that tracks manatees. 

Cathy A. Beck, a wildlife biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey Southeast Ecological Science Center Sirenia Project in Gainesville, Fla., confirmed that the photos she took were of Chessie. Beck manages the Manatee Individual Photo-identification System (MIPS), a USGS database of images and sighting histories for more than 2,500 manatees, with data for some extending back to the late 1960s. This long-term database provides critical data to model Florida manatee population dynamics needed to assess recovery and status of this endangered species under the Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

Biologists presumed that Chessie had died, and when they indentified Chessie in Florida, she said they too were very excited.  According to National Aquarium Baltimore’s Stranding Coordinator Jennifer Dittmar, Chessie made his debut in Maryland in 1994 and stayed late into the fall. A rescue effort was undertaken and Chessie, who was named at the time, spent several days in rehabilitation at the National Aquarium Baltimore before being returned to the warm waters of Florida. Chessie hasn’t been seen in nearly 10 years when he was last spotted in Virginal in August of 2001.Some of the aquarium staff from 1994 when Chessie was rescued is still at the aquarium. 

“It’s a great feeling for the staff, especially [knowing] that he’s still out there and doing well,” she said.

In 1994 a satellite transmitter was placed on Chessie, but it was lost somewhere in North Carolina the following year, she said.
 
Given Chessie’s past sightings and travels, Dittmar said that he is likely to be heading north.
“I’ve alerted folks in the northeast region,” she said. Then as the water cools, the manatee will head back to the warmer waters.

More about Chessie at http://fl.biology.usgs.gov/Manatees/Manatee_Sirenia_Project

More manatee charms here and here.  (They aren't endangered.)