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Michaela
Citizen
Username: Mayquene
Post Number: 257
Registered: 1-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, August 24, 2006 - 5:49 pm: | 
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... Oops, wrong one .... ;)
Southerner makes a splash on Cape
Manatee's visit is a record
By Beth Daley, Globe Staff | August 24, 2006
An adventurous Florida manatee has swum more than 1,000 miles to Cape Cod, farther north than the creatures have ever been known to venture.
The manatee, dubbed Marvin by onlookers, was spotted off Woods Hole last Thursday and on Sunday was seen drinking from a storm-water pipe at a crowded marina in Warwick, R.I. The next day, it was seen again, exploring Wickford Harbor on the western shore of Narragansett Bay.
The sightings have charmed New Englanders but are baffling scientists, who cannot explain why the half-ton gray mammal would take such a long journey north, although they say unusually warm waters up the East Coast may have made the trip possible. But some worry about how the animal will make it home before cold weather sets in.
``I can't help but worry, it's so docile. . . . I hope it's really heading south now," said Frances Ethier, a Rhode Island Environmental Police sergeant who responded to a call Sunday about the manatee in Warwick, R.I.
She assumed that people had seen only a log, but when she arrived, the manatee was calmly rolling around a narrow channel next to the marina and drinking water from the pipe. Hundreds watched. ``It's a beautiful animal," Ethier said.
Florida manatees, enormous but gentle creatures fond of getting their bellies rubbed, number only about 3,000 to 4,000 in the world. Once hunted by humans for food, the species existed in plentiful herds that have been diminished in part by loss of habitat along the Florida coast. Manatees, on the federal list of endangered species, have no predators other than humans and can live to be 60 years old or more. But they are easily injured or killed by boat propellers and can die from red tide or cold temperatures.
Often called sea cows, the mammals are related to elephants. They have stout, wrinkled muzzles, flippers with fingernails, and fat, spoon-shaped tails that folklore says sparked sailors' visions of mermaids. Voracious herbivores, manatees can consume 10 to 15 percent of their body weight a day, around 100 to 150 pounds of aquatic plants such as sea grass.
The animals like water that is 68 degrees Fahrenheit or warmer and tend to live in shallow waters off the Florida Atlantic coast and in the Gulf of Mexico.
Manatees can travel 20 to 30 miles a day. There have been rare reports of manatees traveling as far west as Texas. One famous wayward manatee was Chessie, airlifted out of Chesapeake Bay and transported to Florida in 1994, only to be found swimming off Point Judith in Rhode Island the following year. Chessie made it home the second time by himself.
At first, scientists thought the manatee in New England was Chessie, because it had similar scars on its tail. But manatee specialists in Florida examined video footage and photos of the animal yesterday and determined it was not. They believe it is the same one spotted earlier this summer near Ocean City, Md., then off the coast of New Jersey, and then in the Hudson River off Harlem and Westchester.
Officials know little about this summer's visitor. They believe it's an adult male, largely because long solo trips, though rare, tend to be undertaken by males. They don't know how much it weighs or its exact length.
Big questions remain about why the manatee apparently headed north and what made conditions favorable to its trip. Normally, cold temperatures would turn such animals back.
Some coastal waters are warmer this year. At one sampling site in Woods Hole, sea temperatures through mid-August have consistently been above 70 degrees Fahrenheit, while last year they never got out of the 60s, according to data from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
Scientists say warmer waters might be coming from eddies that have spun off from the Gulf Stream. Such eddies frequently bring tropical fish to Southeastern New England; this year an eddy may have contributed to an incursion of poisonous Portuguese man-of-war jellyfish in Southern New England. Some scientists also suspect global warming, which appears to be heating oceans, might also be part of the equation.
``And the warm water still doesn't explain why it went wandering in the first place," said Tom Reinert, research administrator with the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission. ``That's the million-dollar question."
Officials warned that anyone spotting the manatee should not try to go near it but call police or wildlife authorities. Officials don't plan on doing anything drastic, like airlifting the animal home, but they want to make sure onlookers don't bother it, so it can find its way south.
Scientists said the fact that Marvin has moved from Cape Cod to Rhode Island may mean the manatee is heading back south, possibly spurred by subtle changes in water temperature. If it continues toward Florida, it would probably have sufficient time to beat cold weather.
The animals are savvy navigators, the scientists said. ``I wonder if people realize how wonderful this is, that they have an opportunity to have an animal like this where they are," said Cathy Beck, a biologist with the US Geological Survey who studies manatees.
Beth Daley can be reached at bdaley@globe.com.
© Copyright 2006 Globe Newspaper Company.
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Carl Thompson
Citizen
Username: Topcat
Post Number: 210
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, August 24, 2006 - 7:04 pm: |
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“Southerner makes a splash on Cape”
You mean our MOL friend Southerner is really a manatee? Amazing! I know we all conceal our identities online, at least a little bit. But this is a dramatic turn of events. Who would have thought a sea cow would be such a political conservative? I guess it’s not a surprise, though, since they have the whole political spectrum in Florida.
Dave, I hope you’re not going to punish Micheala for outing Southerner.
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