It's like the Chilean miners only there's only one and it's a manatee.

November 30, 2016 11:19 AM

Rescue operations are currently underway for a manatee stuck in a storm drain in Jacksonville, FL. Watch live now!
posted by bondcliff (53 comments total)

"Allllll the way dowwwwn!"

This just better not end up like the little girl in Radio Days is all I am saying. Hang in there, huge manatee! <3
posted by theatro at 11:27 AM on November 30, 2016 [1 favorite]

I wish these fine people all the best in saving the manatee! This is one of the few hopeful things I've seen in the news recently and I'm glad you posted, bondcliff. It brightens a rainy day to see them trying. {{{Hugs}}} for the poor manatee--hang in there!
posted by Silverstone at 11:32 AM on November 30, 2016 [2 favorites]

I'm going to call it now, the manatee is actually hiding in the attic.
posted by radwolf76 at 11:33 AM on November 30, 2016 [8 favorites]

Whatever, sea cow.
posted by bdk3clash at 11:34 AM on November 30, 2016 [3 favorites]

Oh, the huge manatee!
posted by Damienmce at 11:36 AM on November 30, 2016 [26 favorites]

Is this at all related to the giant hole being dug by the folks at Cards Against Humanity?

Wait.
Cards Against Humanity.
Cards Against Huge Manatees?

THIS MEANS SOMETHING, PEOPLE!!
posted by Atom Eyes at 11:41 AM on November 30, 2016 [27 favorites]

when sea cow was in jacksonville

let my sea cow go
posted by poffin boffin at 11:42 AM on November 30, 2016 [15 favorites]

This is one of the few hopeful things I've seen in the news recently and I'm glad you posted, bondcliff.

Yeah but if the manatee dies I'm gonna just have to pack up and leave Metafilter forever.
posted by bondcliff at 11:42 AM on November 30, 2016 [7 favorites]

(going to blow off work to live in this thread for the rest of the day)
posted by DirtyOldTown at 11:44 AM on November 30, 2016 [3 favorites]

I'all watch if we get word that Balloon Boy is in that sea cow.
posted by maxsparber at 11:46 AM on November 30, 2016

Whoa, they're tearing up the street. That must be expensive. But what price huge manatee?
posted by Countess Elena at 11:49 AM on November 30, 2016 [5 favorites]

I don't trust 2016 enough to watch this. I don't think I could take a heart breaking outcome. Sure, there are more tragic things happening right now than a manatee stuck in a drain, but still... Come on! Live and be a happy manatee for the rest of your days!
posted by lesbiassparrow at 11:53 AM on November 30, 2016 [6 favorites]

A Manatee rescue mobile unit is on scene.

Life goals.
posted by theatro at 11:56 AM on November 30, 2016 [15 favorites]

Hold on, big buddy. We're coming.
posted by Capt. Renault at 11:56 AM on November 30, 2016

(I didn't even know manatees could drive?)
posted by theatro at 11:56 AM on November 30, 2016 [3 favorites]

Holy cap, that's just down the street from me! Poor guy.
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 12:04 PM on November 30, 2016

CSI: Manatee Rescue Mobile Unit?
posted by GenjiandProust at 12:05 PM on November 30, 2016 [1 favorite]

Oh how I would watch that show.
posted by theatro at 12:08 PM on November 30, 2016 [3 favorites]

Manatee rescue mobile unit

Are you listening, Lego and Playmobile people?
posted by bondcliff at 12:11 PM on November 30, 2016 [10 favorites]

How will they get the manatee to swim backwards ?
posted by Pendragon at 12:11 PM on November 30, 2016

A Manatee rescue mobile unit is on scene.

Life goals.

They do get a lot of work, unfortunately, and it's not all that fun. The reason manatees are so endangered is because they're constantly getting hit by boats.
posted by Sys Rq at 12:13 PM on November 30, 2016

I can't play the video on my work computer.

SOMEONE TELL ME HOW THE MANATEE IS DOING
posted by cooker girl at 12:13 PM on November 30, 2016 [1 favorite]

Fell into a storm drain down in Jacksonville
The dugong-gong-gong
The dugong-gong

Folks tryin' to save him and we hope they will
The dugong-gong-gong
The dugong-gong
posted by Atom Eyes at 12:19 PM on November 30, 2016 [14 favorites]

No, I don't expect it's fun, Sys Rq. But it's good and noble work. (And therefore, I'm sure, grossly underfunded.)
posted by theatro at 12:21 PM on November 30, 2016 [1 favorite]

Last I heard, cooker girl, they said the manatee has some scrapes on its nose, and the water is not the best temperature for it (too cold I think they're saying?); they're saying that while it's in distress, it's not in severe distress.
posted by theatro at 12:25 PM on November 30, 2016

They are trying to pull it back into an opening they've created, cooker girl.
posted by Mouse Army at 12:27 PM on November 30, 2016

The manatee is out and being moved into the truck.
posted by zachlipton at 12:34 PM on November 30, 2016 [5 favorites]

HE'S OUT!
posted by DirtyOldTown at 12:34 PM on November 30, 2016 [16 favorites]

Yay!
posted by Captain_Science at 12:36 PM on November 30, 2016 [1 favorite]

WOOOOO!!! It's in the truck, on it's way to sea world.
posted by Pendragon at 12:38 PM on November 30, 2016 [2 favorites]

Whew! What a relief!

In one of the shots of the more distant crowd across the street, someone was holding up a sign--did anyone see what it said?
posted by theatro at 12:38 PM on November 30, 2016 [1 favorite]

Upon being removed from the hole, the manatee shouted "I'm going to Disney SeaWorld!"
posted by zachlipton at 12:38 PM on November 30, 2016 [2 favorites]

Huzzah!!
posted by Atom Eyes at 12:40 PM on November 30, 2016 [1 favorite]

Please fund my Kickstarter to help buy Jacksonville some screens for their storm drains.
posted by bondcliff at 12:42 PM on November 30, 2016 [2 favorites]

...while it's in distress, it's not in severe distress.

Then manatee is doing better than me. :(
posted by Capt. Renault at 12:44 PM on November 30, 2016 [14 favorites]

In one of the shots of the more distant crowd across the street, someone was holding up a sign--did anyone see what it said?

MANATEE OF MANATEES, SAYETH THE PREACHER, ALL IS MANATEE [fake]
posted by ricochet biscuit at 12:46 PM on November 30, 2016 [3 favorites]

This happens too often. Last February, nineteen of them got stuck in a drain pipe. A metal mesh over the openings would solve the problem -- I've seen a few installed since then.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 1:21 PM on November 30, 2016 [1 favorite]

Manatees are huge aquatic teddy bears and it is on my bucket list (apologies for using that term) to hug one. Given I spent my childhood near Crystal River, I'm shocked this hasn't happened.
posted by Kitteh at 1:36 PM on November 30, 2016 [1 favorite]

Manatees are huge aquatic teddy bears and it is on my bucket list (apologies for using that term) to hug one.

Oh, the hugged manatee!
posted by Joe in Australia at 2:00 PM on November 30, 2016 [5 favorites]

Calming Manatee.
posted by palmcorder_yajna at 3:01 PM on November 30, 2016 [4 favorites]

It looked pretty small for a manatee, so I'm guessing an adolescent who was either too curious or inexperienced for their own good? Glad they got it out safely and hopefully it will recover quickly and be returned to the wild.
posted by tavella at 3:11 PM on November 30, 2016

Manatees are huge aquatic teddy bears and it is on my bucket list (apologies for using that term) to hug one.

I tried to hug a manatee once, about 25 years ago. My grandmother lived on a canal in Cocoa Beach, where they did have gratings but people would break them open to get their boats out into the river. This lead to gators eating pets and manatees getting hurt and or stuck.

I was on her deck in shorts and t-shirt when a pod of manatees with a baby came by. I kicked off my shoes and got in the canal, which was shallow enough to stand in except in the very center, and waded through the algae. I was able to put my hand on one, and let it pull me about 15 feet, but they all made sure I got nowhere near the baby. It was one of the coolest things I've ever experienced.

They feel like a wet elephant.
posted by buildmyworld at 3:24 PM on November 30, 2016 [17 favorites]

That is the most Florida comment I have ever seen here.
posted by cmfletcher at 3:38 PM on November 30, 2016 [5 favorites]

I had to leave for necessary errands, so thank you all so much for updates and for the great news that the manatee has been rescued. bondcliff, since you valiantly performed the public service of letting us know of the problem and linked to a livefeed of the rescue, I would certainly have protested loudly if you left Metafilter should some unfortunate outcome had happened :) Very loudly.
posted by Silverstone at 3:39 PM on November 30, 2016 [2 favorites]

Apparently manatees are curious, as are cats.

Obviously manatees are NOT like cats, in that whatever they can fit their whiskers through will not accommodate the rest of their body.
posted by BlueHorse at 4:54 PM on November 30, 2016 [2 favorites]

Oh, the huge manatee!
posted by Damienmce

God dammit, I was going to post that!
Oh well, at least Justin Bieber punched one of his fans in the face and I got to tweet "The shit really hit the fan this time."
posted by w0mbat at 4:54 PM on November 30, 2016 [5 favorites]

I'm gonna be honest, I don't love the title of this post. I think it's disrespectful and problematic to compare humans to animals, especially humans who are working under-respected jobs, and humans who are not white, since there are already major systemic issues tilting the playing field out of their favour without the added insult of making non-human comparisons to them.

This manatee is an animal who accidentally and improbably swam into a drain (I assume; I didn't click the link because I don't really care, even though manatees are nice enough). Animal. Chance.

The Chilean miners are actual human beings working a grueling, underpaid and known-to-be dangerous job. They had a union that pointed out that the mines they were working in were habitually unsafe, and still they suffered almost died due to entrenched systemic lack of care for their human lives. Other humans decided their lives didn't matter enough to bother making the mines more safe. The miners are humans. Oppressed, under-valued, and deliberately put at risk.

The miners deserve respect and I do not think it's cool to compare them to animals. Specifically any time we can NOT compare PoC to animals, that'd be even better. Colonialism already played that right out.
posted by pseudostrabismus at 5:48 PM on November 30, 2016 [4 favorites]

God dammit, I was going to post that!

Read the tags very carefully.

The miners deserve respect and I do not think it's cool to compare them to animals.

I was comparing the spectacle of the two rescues. I was not comparing the actual people to animals, and while I think it's a bit of stretch, I can understand how you got that from the title. I have nothing but the utmost respect for anyone badass enough to go underground and dig coal so that I can sit in my cube and make silly posts about manatees.
posted by bondcliff at 6:11 PM on November 30, 2016

That is the most Florida comment I have ever seen here.

*cracks knuckles*

This has nothing to do with the article, but it does have to do with Florida, and animals in storm drains so I think it's not too much of a derail. Plus it's a good story.

I grew up in Broward County, in a house on a canal. The subdivision I lived in also had a drainage/irrigation pond roughly the size of a football field and about 15 ft deep that was fed from the canal via an underground tunnel/culvert that ran under the street I lived on. My street was a dead-end off of US 441 and at the corner there was a Long John Silver's that was right next to this irrigation pond. South Florida has large feral populations of Muscovy Ducks; big, ugly, stupid ducks that are apparently a delicacy in some cultures. The combination of a relatively secluded body of water (pond) and readily available source of fast food garbage to eat (LJS) meant that our neighborhood was a duck's paradise, and these garbage-fed ducks grew fantastically large. So large that they struggled to get more that 6 ft off the ground in the rare chance that they attempted to fly. Also, they shit a lot. So much that as a teenager I was paid by the HOA to pressure wash the shit off of the sidewalks by the pond on a quarterly basis. On multiple occasions, I have slipped and fallen while running down the sidewalk because of slippery, slimy duck shit. South Florida is a weird place.

The one thing that the ducks had to contend with, like all animals that live in South Florida is the omnipresent, oppressive and stultifying heat. In our neighborhood, we had storm drains that emptied directly into the canals. So during the heat of the day, the ducks would often retreat into the storm drain culvert to escape the heat. Sometimes they would go far enough in that you could see and hear them through the drain grates in the street. When I was a young child and saw this for the first time, I ran to my mom and she told me what I've just told all of you and that it was OK, they would find their way out, and they usually AFAIK did as it wasn't that far to the canal. It was a known thing.

One day when I was about 12-13, so around '98-'99, I was at the pond fishing and I saw a woman walking out to her car. She stopped and looked down at the storm drain and became visibly distressed. I figured she'd dropped her keys down there, so I went over to see If I could help. Turns out she saw a mama duck and her brood of chicks just kicking it in the storm drain and, being new to the area, found this upsetting, so I told her it was OK, they'd find their way out. She did not buy it. She went inside and called 911 to have someone come rescue the ducks. About 30 minutes later an animal control truck comes out and by this time a small group of smirking neighbors has formed and the ducks have retreated back into the culvert and are not visible from the street anymore. Since they can't see the ducks and there is no way a person is gonna crawl through that culvert to "rescue" the ducks, they say there's nothing they can do. At this point she completely loses...her...shit. Starts yelling at these dudes about ducks this and that and tries to physically stop them from leaving. So they call the cops on her. At this point, neighborhood adults are trying to talk her down to no avail. Cops show up, she's still going off. They also try calming her down, also to no avail. So after a few minutes of this they cuff her and take her off in the back of the squad car for what I assume was disorderly conduct. I went back to fishing. A few hours later I saw the mama duck and her chicks walking down the sidewalk towards the pond. I don't know if there is a moral to the story, maybe "trust the process."
posted by dudemanlives at 7:32 PM on November 30, 2016 [9 favorites]

Glad this ended well.
(Not a fan of the post title tbh, it's not up to Metafilter standards.)
posted by The Toad at 9:20 PM on November 30, 2016 [1 favorite]

Could be worse.
posted by ChuraChura at 9:24 AM on December 1, 2016 [1 favorite]

Ha! My parents' house is across the highway from here. Looking for old high school friends in the feed. Yay, manatee!
posted by staggering termagant at 11:36 AM on December 1, 2016 [1 favorite]

I was not comparing the actual people to animals

I see nothing more offensive about comparing humans to manatees than comparing manatees to cats. There is nothing inherently degraded about the manatee that such a comparison is offensive. We're all just animals, getting stuck in our own way.
posted by maxsparber at 12:56 PM on December 1, 2016 [2 favorites]