Hurricane left two large ‘sea cows’ trapped in Florida golf course pond. See rescue
.png "A team that included U.S. Fish and Wildlife and the Clearwater Marine Aquarium was assembled to catch the manatees in nets and relocate them to open water, Florida Fish and Wildlife officials say.")
The havoc created by Hurricane Debby is still being assessed along Florida’s Gulf Coast, and one of the stranger examples was found at a Citrus County golf course.
Huge shapes seen in a murky pond at Plantation Inn and Golf Resort in Crystal River were identified as manatees — also known as “sea cows” — which can weigh as much as an adult giraffe.
That’s a lot of fish for a golf course pond, so there was no way the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission was going to leave them there.
“After extreme high tide events, like we saw with Hurricane Debby, water levels rise and allow manatees to access ponds and waterways they can’t normally reach,” the FWC Wildlife Research Institute wrote in an Aug. 15 Facebook post.
“Once the water recedes to normal levels, these manatees can become entrapped and require rescue from trained responders.”
Hurricane Debby made landfall the first time Aug. 5, about an 85-mile drive north of Crystal River in Steinhatchee. Winds reached 75 mph and as much as 21 inches of rain fell in some parts of Florida.
The accompanying storm surge lifted the massive manatees over a golf cart path and deposited them in the pond, state officials said.
A rescue team that included U.S. Fish and Wildlife and the Clearwater Marine Aquarium was assembled to relocate the pair to open water.
That involved catching the manatees in nets and using six or more people at a time to drag them onto land, video shows.
Both manatees were examined and found to be in good health, and one was identified as a “rehab case” that was nursed back to health and released in the area last winter, officials said.
Manatees are plant eaters known to feed up to eight hours a day on sea grasses, the FWC says. They can reach 13 feet in length and have been known to live 65 years in captivity, experts say.
Crystal River is about an 80-mile drive north from Tampa.
This story was originally published August 16, 2024 at 1:58 PM with the headline "Hurricane left two large ‘sea cows’ trapped in Florida golf course pond. See rescue."