Sea cows? I only see these ocean doggos
September 6, 2018 2:51 PM   Subscribe

See manatee. See manatee roll over. See manatee checking out a new friend. See manatees chasing kayaks. Good manatees! (Via Imgur) If you want to play with ocean doggos, head over to Three Sisters Springs in Crystal River, Florida (Google maps), a winter shelter from colder ocean temperatures, one of the only places in the world where humans are encouraged to interact with these curious creatures. And good news, everybody! The manatee population is on the rise!

Since the surveys started in 1991, the number of manatees counted during the surveys had increased, which is related to a growing population, improved survey techniques, and increased knowledge of where manatees aggregate. Though downgraded from endangered to threatened in 2017, not everyone's happy with the changed designation.
posted by filthy light thief (34 comments total) 26 users marked this as a favorite
 
Quality Wholesome Content.
posted by praemunire at 3:09 PM on September 6, 2018 [4 favorites]


This is the good shit I come to MetaFilter for. I like this post.
posted by Fizz at 3:10 PM on September 6, 2018


Ocean Doggo! Manatee's are awesome, we should all aspire to Manateedom. Long live the Manatee!
posted by zeoslap at 3:11 PM on September 6, 2018 [2 favorites]


There's something about an aquatic creature with cartoon nostrils and a mustache that just melts one's heart...

Whales are supposedly descended from land animals, and I'm starting to think back into the water might not be a bad call at this point. Do manatees float because they're enlightened, or are they enlightened because they float? If the latter, then we've all still got a shot.
posted by Sing Or Swim at 3:25 PM on September 6, 2018


Hugging a manatee is on my bucket list.
posted by grumpybear69 at 4:00 PM on September 6, 2018


Whales are supposedly descended from land animals, and I'm starting to think back into the water might not be a bad call at this point.

Do you want Starfish by Peter Watts because this is how you get Starfish by Peter Watts!!
posted by Fizz at 4:09 PM on September 6, 2018 [3 favorites]


So back in January, we went to Disney World with the whole famn damily. Including a day at Epcot. We were at the Living Seas, checking out the manatees.

A nice yellow Lab mix, service dog, began to walk by one end of the big window we were looking into.

...and stopped dead in its tracks with eyes like headlights, its gaze following the enormous thing in the water.

I swear, if that dog could have said it, it would have bellowed out, "What. The. Heck?!?!?"
posted by notsnot at 4:11 PM on September 6, 2018 [5 favorites]


One day the wife, an extremely accomplished and strong swimmer was swimming north south laps about 400 yards off the Boca Raton beach. Suddenly I looked to see what had everyone's attention. A shark was closing on my wife from behind. Everyone was yelling and screaming at her. Of course she could not hear us. At her southern turn around point she turned back north unaware of the shark shadowing behind her. When she was even with us she headed back to shore still unaware. About 50 yards from shore it was suddenly clear that her shadowing companion was in fact a huge manatee whose "hump" looked for all the world like a sharks dorsal fin from a great distance. Once ashore she wanted to know what all the fuss was. At that time the manatee sounded and was gone. She never did get to see her aquatic buddy. (Fla.)
posted by notreally at 4:16 PM on September 6, 2018 [4 favorites]


Manatee o manatee
O bovine beauty of the sea
O won't you come and marry me
My warm and flaccid manatee
posted by benzenedream at 4:23 PM on September 6, 2018 [10 favorites]


I was walking on dock in Florida once when a I heard a sound like bubbles in water, when I turned I saw a manatee disappearing under the water. I ran to peer down after it, but was too late.

Then I heard the bubble sound again, from the other side of the dock.

For the next few minutes I played with that manatee, it would stick its head up on the next slip over or right behind me, and as I found it it would slip gracefully under. Eventually we stopped and just looked at each other. This is when a small group came down the dock and excitedly ran to see it, and I backed off so they could get a better view.

Let me tell you, if there had been a save the manatees donation box at the end of that dock I wouldn’t have had enough money left to get home.
posted by lepus at 4:25 PM on September 6, 2018 [22 favorites]


Years ago, I was invited to an Easter dinner with some friends of a friend. These friends exchanged Easter baskets in a fairly serious way, and one of them contained a beanie baby called Manny the Manitee. And I said, looking Manny over, “it’s a nice manatee, but a dump poem on the tag.” And she said “like you can do better.” And I replied:

I am a manatee.
Please don’t run over me.
You look like a nice feller;
Don’t hit me with your propeller.

And she said, a bit sourly, “that is a better poem.”
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:38 PM on September 6, 2018 [17 favorites]


Also, I feel this is a Filthhy Lightflower post.
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:39 PM on September 6, 2018 [1 favorite]


I saw a young one once from a rented canoe in the Everglades. He put his head above water, saw us, and we looked at each other for a second. Then he breathed out with a "pfffttttt" sound, inhaled again and down he went. He flipped his rear fin up as he dived back down. It was a very brief encounter, but he definitely seemed curious rather than scared.
posted by Pallas Athena at 4:39 PM on September 6, 2018 [3 favorites]


I had a memorable manatee encounter once.
posted by saladin at 5:01 PM on September 6, 2018 [8 favorites]


MetaFilter:he asked me if I was “born under a porch”
posted by GenjiandProust at 5:05 PM on September 6, 2018 [2 favorites]


Oh, the huge manatee!
posted by oneswellfoop at 5:29 PM on September 6, 2018 [2 favorites]


it would have bellowed out, "What. The. Heck?!?!?"

H*ck, please, sea and land doggos may be listening.
posted by praemunire at 6:13 PM on September 6, 2018 [2 favorites]


The best manatee site.
posted by Cocodrillo at 6:51 PM on September 6, 2018 [2 favorites]


humans are encouraged to interact with these curious creatures. And good news, everybody! The manatee population is on the rise!

I'll just leave this here.
posted by hippybear at 7:07 PM on September 6, 2018 [1 favorite]


love them! See them in the canals down in Key Largo once in a while. Also I really want a transparent canoe
posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 at 7:57 PM on September 6, 2018


Well done!
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 8:27 PM on September 6, 2018


Something I learned just recently: "Manatees have very unique lips that help them gather, grasp and manipulate food. Since manatees don't have hands, their prehensile lips are very important, helping the manatee eat almost like the elephant's trunk helps it eat. The manatee's lips involve a large, split upper lip." So cool!
posted by Popular Ethics at 10:24 PM on September 6, 2018 [3 favorites]


A few years ago, a couple of my news photographer friends were covering the relocation of a manatee to a new tank at an aquarium down here in Florida. They were using a huge crane and sling contraption. Apparently no one told the manatee what was going to be happening, so just as they hoisted in out of the water, it panicked and evacuated its bowels in spectacular fashion.

One photog was in front, by the head, and got video of the other photog behind, on the receiving end. It's on FB, somewhere, and I'll try to find a link, but it's definitely not for pre- or post-lunch viewing.
posted by martin q blank at 7:16 AM on September 7, 2018


humans are encouraged to interact with these curious creatures. And good news, everybody! The manatee population is on the rise!

I'll just leave this here.


Unfortunately, we people are good at one thing: ruining things. Florida's Gulf Coast Battles Deadly And Smelly Red Tide (NPR, August 14, 2018)
Florida this week declared a state of emergency because of a slow-moving natural disaster — red tide.

Red tide is toxic algae that have persisted off Florida's Gulf Coast for nearly a year. In recent weeks, the algae bloom has worsened, killing fish, turtles and dolphins and discouraging tourism on some of the state's most beautiful beaches.
...
In Manatee and Sarasota counties, more than 100 tons of dead fish have been removed from the beaches. At Mote Marine Laboratory, biologist Rebeccah Hazelkorn says strandings of marine mammals and sea turtles have spiked recently. "You start to see baitfish wash up, then you see larger fish," she says. "Then you start to see your tarpon and your grouper. Then you start to see your sea turtles and your manatees. And the highest on the food web are the dolphins when it starts affecting those guys."
The Gulf of Mexico's "Red Tide" is one type of harmful algal bloom (HAB) (NOAA Ocean Service), which is (generally) caused by nutrient overloads and sunlight, and climate change might cause harmful algal blooms to occur more often, in more waterbodies and to be more intense (EPA).
posted by filthy light thief at 7:49 AM on September 7, 2018 [2 favorites]


I have a manatea at my desk.
posted by twilightlost at 12:49 PM on September 7, 2018


I "saved" a manatee! Saw an ad when I was in 4th grade, said I could save a manatee for $30. There were 30 kids in my class. I did the math. We "saved" a manatee! Kids are cool!

btw manatees are related to elephants, dugongs, and hyraxes. There is seriously a category of animal that includes elephants, some big ole thing that grazes on ocean plantlife, manatees, and a cute liitle land rodenty thing.
posted by aniola at 1:07 PM on September 7, 2018 [7 favorites]


The first three videos could all so easily be subtitled "Oi, mate, got any lettuce? Mate, oi, mate: lettuce, got any, then?
posted by scruss at 1:46 PM on September 7, 2018


In the 80s, I won second or third place in a "save the manatee" contest. Prize was a stuffed animal manatee, signed by Jimmy Buffett. That is all.
posted by armacy at 4:18 PM on September 7, 2018 [4 favorites]


Thank you for this! When I was little, I wanted to see a manatee in person so bad. I was obsessed with mermaids, and I had heard that manatee sightings inspired mermaid legends, which made no sense whatsoever. Who could possibly be at sea long enough to mistake a manatee for a woman? But watching film of the way they move and the way their flukes emerge from the water does make it seem more likely that a sailor with a very poor view might believe that he caught a glimpse of a mermaid sounding.

There are so many super precious manatee videos that show up in my recommendations now. Less precious, though, was this one, showing a manatee branded with the number 69. After initial alarm, it turned out that the manatee was not the victim of a sick joke, but was numbered by a scientist two decades ago. Her name is Christine, and she is fine.
posted by Countess Elena at 4:55 PM on September 7, 2018 [1 favorite]


Sadly, the oldest manatee in captivity died last year at the age of 70. His name was Snooty. I've heard stories from people who worked with him and he was known to get a little, er... excited around college girls. RIP, Snooty, you horny old manatee.
posted by dephlogisticated at 4:58 PM on September 7, 2018 [1 favorite]


Amazing that there used to be a cold water version of these guys: Steller's sea cow !
posted by RuvaBlue at 6:01 PM on September 7, 2018 [2 favorites]


When I was growing up, we had a cabin on the withlacootchee river. Manatees loved that section of the river so much that nobody ever used a motor on their boats, it was rowboat and canoe and manatees. Glorious, soft, wonderful manatees. When my mom made my dad sell the cabin because she didn't like it, I was heartbroken. Now that I think about it, 35 years later, I'm still kinda mad. Nothing in the world compares to being a naked kid swimming with manatees under a canopy of Spanish moss.
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 6:30 PM on September 7, 2018 [8 favorites]


As a long ago Florida kid, swimming in the springs was super special because you never knew if a manatee was going to come into the area where you were and allowed. They were always so damn awesome.
posted by drewbage1847 at 10:21 PM on September 7, 2018 [4 favorites]


The Algal horror continues in Florida, Gov Scott is escaping the blame that rests with for the years for acting against fertilizer regulations, pushing for more industrial use of those coastal springs, pushing the Duke energy pipeline that he profited from, and subverting the public lands program. Those poor animals should be on his conscience, if he had one.

I'm overjoyed at the posts here, just in grief at losing over 100 of these guys. I know with this kind of care, we can help the species thrive in the long term.
posted by eustatic at 11:18 PM on September 7, 2018 [2 favorites]


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