Two days after Hurricane Helene tore through the Southeast, personnel at Tampa’s MacDill Air Force Base spotted something odd. A sort of… blob, rolling around near the runway. Moving closer, they discovered a manatee—now known as Troy—lying alone in a small puddle in the grass beside the concrete.
“It was this gray mass flopping in what was a little depression of earth,” says Andy Garrett, the Manatee Rescue Coordinator at the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. “It was basically going to die if we didn’t get to it.” Fortunately Garrett’s team swiftly responded and released Troy in the nearby bay.
When winds push coastal waters inland and rain turns streets into small rivers, humans tend to get out of the way. But for manatees, it opens up whole new areas to explore. Once the water recedes, some are left in ponds—or even puddles—with no way out. Troy isn’t the first manatee to end up somewhere unusual; others have landed in the middle of forests or on golf courses. “They’re very curious animals,” Garrett says. “They keep pushing the envelope.”
So far, FWC has handled thirteen cases of stranded manatees in the wake of Helene. That number might not seem high, but rescuing them is no easy task and almost always involves “a large team of strong people,” Garrett says. Despite their reputation for being slow-moving water loafs, manatees can kick it into high gear when they need to, swimming as fast as fifteen miles per hour. And while they can’t fight back with bark or bite, they can roll. “Their natural reaction when being pulled onto shore is to start barrel-rolling back,” Garrett says. “A two thousand pound animal doing that can be dangerous.”
Time is of the essence, too. Manatees are mammals and can breathe air just fine, but “with the sun beating down, I don’t think they would last very long even if they were in a little bit of water,” Garrett explains. Animals exposed to these elements, like Troy, take highest priority. Others, like the five manatees currently trapped in a cemetery pond in Largo, can wait a little longer, as long as they have plenty to munch on and are returned to open water before pond temperatures dip consistently below 68 degrees Fahrenheit.
“It’s going to be a whole-day event,” Garrett says of the eventual rescue of the five stranded manatees. Don’t worry—they’ll be fine swimming near headstones for a couple days as FWC navigates more pressing cases across the state.
As Floridians gradually return to their homes post-evacuation, Garrett urges them to keep an eye out. Once, after a past storm, an adult manatee and calf were found in a forest half a mile from the shore a full week after landfall. “There’s always potential for it to be a longer time for them to be found, and that would be a drop-everything-and-go situation for us,” he says.
“Ninety eight percent of our calls are from people who see something that doesn’t look right to them,” Garrett says. “We just encourage people, even if they’re not a hundred percent sure, to give us a call. Because the sooner we get to these animals, the better for them.”
To report a stranded manatee, call the FWC wildlife alert number at (888) 404-3922. Press “7” to speak with an operator.
