Manatees clearly are not too impressed by the effects of global warming and are swimming out of the chilly Gulf of Mexico waters and into warmer springs and power plant discharge canals. On Tuesday, more than 300 manatees floated into the outflow of Tampa Electric’s Big Bend Power Station reports Physorg.com:
Manatees congregate in a canal where discharge from a nearby Florida Power & Light plant warms the water in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Tuesday, Dec. 28, 2010.
“It’s like a warm bathtub for them,” said Wendy Anastasiou, an environmental specialist at the power station’s manatee viewing center. “They come in here and hang out and loll around.”
Cold weather can weaken manatees’ immune systems and eventually kill them. State officials said 2010 has been a deadly year for the beloved animals: between Jan. 1 and Dec. 17, 246 manatees died from so-called “cold stress.” During the same time period in 2009, only 55 manatees died from the cold. In 2008, only 22 manatees succumbed to chilly temperatures.
Manatee deaths documented from Jan. 1 through Dec. 5 are nearly double the five-year average for that time period, according to Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission statistics.
“Obviously we’re very concerned as an agency about the unusually high number of manatee deaths this year,” said Wendy Quigley, a spokeswoman with the state-run Fish and Wildlife Research Institute in St. Petersburg.
A total of 699 manatees were found dead between Jan. 1 and Dec. 5; state officials say it’s likely the cold temperatures also contributed to many of the 203 deaths in the “undetermined” category and the 68 deaths of manatees whose bodies could not be recovered.
Quigley noted that the statistics don’t even include this week’s cold snap, which sent temperatures plummeting into the 30s in parts of South Florida overnight and into the teens in the central part of the state.
Tampa Bay and Gulf water temperatures are hovering around 50 degrees, said Anastasiou. When the water dips below 68, manatees seek warmer waters – usually springs or the power plant discharge canals. The water temperature in the power plant’s Big Bend canal ranges from about 65-75 degrees, Anastasiou said. Even though they’re huge animals, manatees are very cold sensitive……… During last year’s cold snap, some 329 manatees congregated at the Tampa Electric power station. In Broward County on Tuesday, some 50 manatees gathered in the outfall of a Florida Power and Light plant.
The k2p blog 