Grove Koger

Among the many sights we look forward to on our visits to Florida’s Wakulla Springs, the manatees that swim up and down the 11-mile Wakulla River are probably at the top of our list.

Manatees are mammals, members of the order Sirenia, and the subspecies we see in Florida, Trichechus manatus latirostris, or Florida manatees, can live up to 60 years. They swim 5 miles up the St. Marks River from Apalachee Bay (in the northeastern Gulf of Mexico), and further up the Wakulla River, which itself is fed by water from the Springs. They’re herbivores, and find a rich diet in the water plants growing in the rivers. They also seem to enjoy hanging out in in the basin of the spring itself. They’re a protected species, and while they generally don’t venture into the area that’s been roped off for people, I have the impression that they find people, and the excursion boats that routinely make their way up and down stretches of the spring and the river, somewhat interesting. Since it’s necessary for them to rise to the surface to breathe every 4 minutes or so, good sightings are common from the boats. (However, as you see from Maggie’s image at the top of today’s post, it’s difficult to photograph them from the surface with a cell phone.)

Explorer Christopher Columbus spotted manatees, which he thought, understandably enough, must be mermaids. In an entry from his 1493 journal, he wrote that he and his sailors “saw three mermaids, which rose well out of the sea; but they are not so beautiful as they are said to be, for their faces had some masculine traits.” That’s putting the matter charitably.

Later Spanish explorers in Florida referred to the animals more accurately as “vacas marinas,” or sea cows. Famed American naturalist William Bartram described a manatee skeleton on the shore of what he named Manatee Springs in his Travels through North and South Carolina, Georgia, East and West Florida, etc. (1791).  

Florida’s manatees have cousins, Antillean manatees (T. m. manatus), which live nearby in regions of the Caribbean Sea. African manatees (T. senegalensis) live in the rivers and along the coasts of West Africa, while other relatives, the dugongs, live along the coasts of East Africa, western India, Indonesia, and the warmer coasts of Australia. Another species still, Steller’s sea cows (Hydrodamalis gigas) once inhabited the coasts of the North Pacific, but were hunted to extinction by Europeans during the eighteenth century.

Amazonian manatees live only in fresh water, while dugongs live only in salt water. The other species, including Florida’s, thrive in both thanks to a unique kidney system.

Manatees have recently appeared on first-class stamps in the United States, and we’ve laid in a good supply to remind us of our happy days in Wakulla Springs.

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