Along the western coast of Florida you’ll find plenty of sanctuaries for Florida manatees. One of the best known areas is Crystal River which brings in hundreds of them during the winter months. Manatees are sensitive to temperature and hate it when the water gets below 70 degrees. They also hate it when it gets very hot. I was surprised to know that Florida manatees have been spotted in my home state of Virginia and even as far north as Massachusetts before! Of course that is a very rare occurrence, and anyone that far north should count that as a once in a life time experience. Otherwise for the rest of us, a trip to Florida’s western estuaries are the surest way to spot a manatee.
Although manatees are classified as endangered, their numbers are pretty dense in western Florida. As a matter of fact, this area of Florida has more manatees than any other place in the world. Even when I stopped by a pier where people were fishing, I saw a pod of large manatees swimming by. Apparently you can even find them from your home using Google earth! In the winter time when the Gulf of Mexico sees lower water temperatures, the manatees swim inland to Florida’s natural springs. These springs are 72F or 22C all year around, so they provide a warm place for the manatees to survive the winter.
I realize these four photos aren’t manatees but I couldn’t resist not posting pictures of all these birds I saw. Pelicans like the two above were very common, but I saw plenty of osprey like on the lower left and cormorants like on the lower right. Apparently a guy fishing told me I had just missed a bald eagle!
Okay, back to the manatees; the best ways to see them is of course to get into a boat or even better in the actual water. When taking a boat there are a lot of signs warning about manatees and reminding boaters and fisherman to go at idle speed. It’s rare for an adult manatee to not have any kind of scar from being hit by a prop. It’s almost a right of passage for them to enter adulthood. Of course not all of them make it, and this is one of the biggest killers of manatees. Another exception was the devastating 2013 Red Tide. This was a large bloom of algae that released so many toxins in the water that actually wiped out nearly 20% of all Florida manatees! Since population records have been kept, this Red Tide single handily delivered the worst blow to the manatee population ever. Manatees take a long time to mature and can only have one calf every few years, so their recovery is a long and slow one.
When I got into the water, I noticed some parts were kind of murky and others were clear. Since these brackish waters are spring fed you actually get clearer water the deeper you go. This isn’t much of a benefit for spotting manatees since they like to be by the surface. These two shots above were some of the clearest I got. Other times visibility would be so poor that I’d seriously almost swim right into them. Below are some schools of fish that I saw while in the water. I even saw some several feet long but it was too murky to get any good photos.
You can see from these photos above that sometimes the manatees can look pretty intimidating. I didn’t realize how huge they were until I actually saw them in person. Manatees can grow up to 1,200 pounds and 15 feet, or more than 500kg and close to 5 meters! Off the top of my head, I cannot think of any large mammal that is more gentle than a manatee. They seem to be split into two basic types, the manatees that want to be left alone and are indifferent to you, or the more curious and playful manatees that will actually approach you and try to interact. This guy below approached me and began to roll over on his back like a dog would. You’re not allowed to touch manatees unless they come up to you and make contact first, so I gave this guy a quick belly rub which put the smile on his face.
This other manatee was so playful he actually grabbed my leg and held onto it! Afterwards he was brushing me with his face and and circling around me before moving on. These guys are harmless, but just because of their huge size there is a minor risk of being injured by a flipper when they move. Their movements are generally very slow, almost like that of a sloth. So even while getting hit by a manatee would be hard to come by, you still need to use common sense and not place yourself between the ground and a manatee or let too may of them surround you.
Just like how elephants and rhinos in Africa lounge around while birds eat small bugs off them, manatees get the same treatment from fish. This large manatee had his own garden growing on his back. I’m not sure why since I didn’t see any others with nearly as much as him, but the fish seemed to take notice and were doing their best to help him out.
Since Manatees are mammals, they need to go up to the air and breathe just like we do. Unlike other fully aquatic mammals like whales or dolphins, manatees rarely go deep into the water and come up to breathe regularly. As a matter of fact, a manatee staying under water for over 15 minutes is very rare. Visiting the manatee was one of the best experiences I’ve ever had in Florida. I definitely plan to do it again and would name it as a must do for those visiting the state!
