Attacked by a Manatee

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“It’s 72 degrees year-round.”

Our guide on the pontoon boat wasn’t talking about the air temperature. She was talking about the water temperature.

I stuck my toe in the water. When it comes to water, 72 degrees is cold…year-round.

It was February 1999, and my college roommates expected me to go swimming. The three of us had driven from the cold North Georgia mountains for a weekend trip to swim with the manatees in warm and sunny Crystal River, Florida.

Early on a chilly, damp Saturday morning in Crystal River, we hired a guide with a pontoon boat to take us to a manatee hangout. Clad in bikinis and snorkels, we perched nervously at the side of the blue pontoon boat.

There were a half dozen other boats in the cove — and all of the other swimmers were wearing sleek black wet suits! As broke college students, we could not afford to be smart. We just had to brave the cold.

And so, this cold-natured English major followed her adventure-seeking biology-major roommates into the frigid water.

And I forgot all about being cold when, four feet below me, I saw the kind eyes of a huge, wrinkly manatee smiling at me. 

Forgetting to breathe through my snorkel, I quickly maneuvered my waterproof disposable camera to sight my first manatee in the viewfinder. As I heard the camera click, I realized the manatee was coming up for air. Backpedaling through the water, I scurried out of his way. He moved much faster than I had expected. Somewhat worried about the close call of my first encounter, I was secretly relieved when he left, refusing to pose for our pictures.  

Undaunted, but mindful of our guide’s instructions not to chase or harass the manatees, we traveled further into the pool. Scanning the water for other manatees and lulled by the sound of my own breathing through the snorkel, I lapsed into a world that held only me and the manatees.

I knew what to expect with the next manatee. I stayed off to the side, watching this manatee watch me.

Ridiculously, I tried to smile around the snorkel. After my mouth filled with water, I made a note not to try that again. Soon I mastered the rhythm: breathing, snapping pictures and not smiling. I reached out to touch one large manatee that ventured close to me. I don’t know what I expected but I was disappointed that he felt just like the slimy Styrofoam under my grandparents’ old dock.

Time passed quickly in that murky underwater world. Almost two hours passed as we watched six manatees that morning, including a mother and baby. As I clambered back into the boat, I realized how cold I was. I wondered how I had not chewed my snorkel in half, chattering from the cold!

******

Two years after swimming with the manatees, my friends and I tried to recreate the experience. We were in a canoe and nothing was going right. We couldn’t find a spot in the cove where we felt comfortable swimming because there were so many motorboats. It was late afternoon and the sun glare meant we couldn’t even see the manatees from our canoe. (Have you ever tried leaning out of a canoe to stick your head in the water to look for manatees?)

We paddled to the shallow water near the bank and in the shade. Suddenly something very large started thrashing violently in the water — directly under our canoe. I thought an alligator was attacking us. One of my friends thought it was a shark. We screamed and cowered in the bottom of the canoe, while all of the boaters in the cove stared at us.

Terror gave way to giggles as we realized we had inadvertently provoked a manatee attack. Apparently sleeping manatees don’t take kindly to being woken by canoes. Because the water was so shallow, he couldn’t get away from us and he panicked.

******

After seeing these slow-moving gentle giants up close on two occasions, I understand how their peaceful coexistence with humans is tenuous. My friends and I were in a canoe. We were actively looking for manatees. And we still managed to run over one.

How much easier would it be to hit a manatee in a fast-moving motorboat? And how much more dangerous for the manatee?

According to Jimmy Buffett's Save the Manatee Club, “Watercraft-related manatee mortality is the leading cause of death of adult manatees [in Florida]. … There are more and more boats using manatee habitat, increasing the risk of dangerous collisions for manatees… Other causes of human-related manatee mortality include swallowing fish hooks, litter, and monofilament line and entanglement in crab trap lines.”

The website goes on to cite research conducted at the Florida Marine Research Institute, which studied manatees carcasses recovered in a salvage program and found that few of the studied carcasses had lived past the age of 30 and the majority of the animals had died between the age of 0 and 10 years. A manatee’s estimated natural life expectancy is 60 years.

How Can Boaters Protect the Manatees?

• Observe the regulatory signs posted to protect the manatees.
• Polarized sunglasses can help eliminate the glare of the sun and help you see below the water's surface.
• Stay in deep water channels and follow all posted boat speed regulations.
• Avoid boating over shallow seagrass beds where manatees might be feeding — but keep in mind that manatees can also be in deeper waters.
• Look for the manatee's snout, back, tail, or flipper breaking the surface of the water; a swirl or a flat spot on the water signals a manatee may be swimming below.
• If you see a manatee when operating a powerboat, remain a safe distance away — about 50 feet. If you want to observe the manatee, cut the motor, but don't drift over the animal.
• Properly discard (or recycle) fishing line, hooks and litter.
• Contact the Save the Manatee Club for a free sign to bring awareness to manatee populations near your dock.
• If you spot an injured, dead, tagged or orphaned manatee in Florida, or if you see a manatee that is being harassed, call 1-888-404-FWCC (3922) or #FWC or *FWC from your cell phone or send a message to Tip@MyFWC.com. You can also use VHF Channel 16 on your marine radio.

How Can Swimmers Protect the Manatees?

• Don’t swim in protected areas or sanctuaries. (It is illegal.)
• If you do swim in areas where it is legal to swim with the manatees, don’t surround the manatees and don’t separate mothers from their calves.
• Don’t chase the manatees.
• The Save the Manatee Club recommends that people do not touch the manatees at all. Manatees that are made uncomfortable by human interaction will leave the warm waters where they spend the winter and many freeze to death when pushed from their habitats.
• If you truly can’t resist the feel of slimy Styrofoam, only touch a manatee that comes up to you and don’t pet them under their fins. (But seriously, just swimming in sight of them is an amazing experience. Touching them kind of ruins their cuddly image!)

Manatees require minimum water temperatures of 68 degrees Fahrenheit to survive. Within the United States, they are concentrated in Florida in the winter. In summer months, they can be found as far west as Texas and as far north as Massachusetts, but summer sightings in Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina are more common. If manatees inhabit your area, please watch for them as you enjoy the water!

To learn more about manatees, visit SaveTheManatee.org and check out the live underwater webcams.

* Photo courtesy of the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission.