Small Town News

Manatee spotted in Indian River Bay by boaters

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Randy Ferguson and his brother-in-law headed into Indian River Bay recently to go crabbing and fishing, and got quite a surprise when they spotted a mana.

Ferguson said they Massey's Landing around 7 a.m., Aug. 28, and went west to fish near Collins Creek. The Trenton, N.J. resident, who owns a vacation home in Long Neck, said the manatee stayed 50 to 60 feet away from his boat, but surfaced several times.

The final time he saw the animal, Ferguson said, he was able to definitively identify it as a manatee from its head and face.

"He'd come up once in a great while, but we never knew where he'd come up. It wasn't like a porpoise, which comes up regularly," he said.

Ferguson said, "I just want boaters to be aware this animal might be there. One of the biggest threats to them is strikes from boats."

Suzanne Thurman, head of the Marine Education, Research & Rehabilitation (MERR) Institute, which handles Delaware marine animal strandings, said for the past 14 years that data has been kept, one manatee is spotted in the area each year. Typically, they are in Delaware around July, but they have been seen as far north as New England, she said.

She said they usually are seen in the Indian River Bay and Inlet area. Thurman said she thinks that is because the Indian River power plant discharges warm water, which manatees like, and because of freshwater in the area

Thurman said later this month, marine animal organizations in the northeast will attend a regional workshop on manatees, because the animals' range seems to be expanding.

Karen Bennett, wildlife administrator in the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control's Fish and Wildlife Division, said the public should use caution and keep

"As people are boating animal the Inland Bays, they should be aware that manatees are slow moving and tend to rest on the bottom - they are prone to injuries from boat propellers," she said, so boaters should be watchful.

Bennett said anyone who sees the animal should contact the department or the Lewes-based MERR Institute. If the manatee appears to be healthy and functioning normally, Bennett said officials would leave it alone, but MERR is well equipped to monitor it and intervene if the animal appears to be injured or ill.

Bennett said this is the first sighting of a manatee in Delaware this summer, but department biologist Edna Stetzar also said manatees have been seen in the area before. In the 1990s, she said, a manatee called Chessie by a Florida research project made it as far north as Rhode Island before being cap-Taken to Florida, turned to the Chesapeake Bay the following year, said Stetzar. Speaking of the manatee sighted this year, Stetzar said, "We don't know if it's the same one. Having a manatee up here is unusual." However, Stetzar said some Florida researchers posit historic manatee migratory routes may have taken the animals further north than they are normally seen now. She said there is speculation that northerly migration is an historic instinct.

Manatees that have visited the area in the past returned south when water temperatures chilled, Stetzar said, but there is probably an ample food source in the area, especially in the Chesapeake.





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