Manatee Crossing

Sorry for the non-posting of late. Life and work keeps intervening in my blog posting.

The creeks, streams, and rivers around here that flow into the Indian River Lagoon or Atlantic are wintering places for manatees.

With the incredible population boom comes a huge increase in people with powered boats.

With all of the boat propellers in the water, and the result is that the slow-moving, docile, and huge manatees pay an awful price for millions to enjoy their boats.

By far boats and the propellers are the biggest threat to the average manatee's life and health.

Many of the ones we've seen paddling around the areas waterways have hash mark scars on them from surviving an encounter with boat's motors.

The law is that you cannot go fast enough on these waterways to make a wake, mostly to help reduce manatee deaths by boats.

But I know people here who spend much time on the water that hate and ignore such rules.

The manatees are magnificent creatures and I always get a thrill out of seeing some in the local creeks.

I have some photos of our first-ever encounter with manatees after we moved to Florida in 1996 here.