3:00 snapshot #1491: Manatee Park

[urbpan]

My dad and I were keen to see manatees. We failed in Big Cypress, and I barely caught a glimpse on Captiva. Fortunately we were blathering about it somewhere and some nice lady suggested we go to Manatee Park. Sounds like just the thing!



This is Manatee Park. It exists because of that power plant in the background. Water from one river is captured and used in the power plant (heated, and the steam used to spin turbines, one imagines) and then discharged into a man-made canal which leads to another river. The manatees come 25 miles upriver from the ocean when it gets cold (ocean temperature below 68 degrees F) and into the toasty warm canal. There's not really anything for them to eat there, so they just hang out in the warm for a while then hustle back to where plants are growing in the water.


Besides just walking along the canal and looking at it, as we did, you could rent a kayak if you wanted.


These people were holding nice and still while a manatee played with or bashed into the buoy there. I don't know what the manatee was doing, but it seemed to involve the buoy rope. Flippers kept popping out of the water.


Under a big live oak tree dripping heavily with Spanish moss, we gathered to hear a kindly biologist tell us all about manatees.


Here she demonstrates, with the help of some kids, just how enormous these things can get.


If I'd known how many statues of pirates and animals dressed as pirates there were down here, I would have made a special project of posing my dad with them.


Oh, and we could see the manatees a little better here.

Comments

[urb-banal.livejournal.com]

oooooooooooooooooh!

[tanyareed.livejournal.com]

This is cool!