Welcome to the Manatee Project

First and foremost, I cannot express to you how disappointed I was this morning when the video conference did not happen. Apparently the internet connection here at Mote was down. I sat in the studio and stared at the screen, looking forward to seeing all of you, but it simply could not connect. With any luck, perhaps we can conference two times next week. I will talk to Mr. Monti and see what we can do. I even came in off the boat a few hours later to try again, but we could not get things to coordinate at that time either.

The boat went on without me at 10, so when we couldn't connect a second time, I had the opportunity to work with Sherri Barton.

Sherri works here at Mote on the manatee project with Teresa. Today she was doing some data entry work, so I had a chance to see what happens to all of the data that we collect in the field. This is a data sheet that has been checked once picture slides are sorted. Once a manatee has been positively identified, its catalog ID is written in red. Another person has to agree with that ID and initial it before it can be entered into the computer. As you can see below, this manatee photographed on April 20, was identified as FM280. All the catalog ID stands for is the place that it was completely documented at, and the number of manatees that have been documented in that area. So Alcatraz, seen below, was completely documented in FM = Fort Myers, and he was the two hundred eightieth manatee to be documented from that area.

Certain data from these sheets is entered into an Excel spreadsheet in the appropriate columns.

While this may be hard for you to read, what I would like you to recognize it that this is a way of organizing the data so it can be analyzed and understood. The first column is for the date of the sighting, and the second is for the location. The third and fourth columns ask for the minimum and maximum numbers of manatees viewed at those sightings. The final column is for entering any cataloged animals that were photographed at the particular sight. Once data is organized, they can draw certain conclusions from it. For example, if they notice that the manatees Barnacle Bill and Grover visited the Matlacha canal area each winter, they can conclude that some manatees may use this warm water canal seasonally. They may also see a pattern that most mother manatees and their calves are spotted in grass beds early in the morning. This may indicate that they eat during a low traffic time, and venture into sanctuaries when boats start to use the grass bed area.

I had to be extremely careful to spell all locations correctly, and since I am not familiar with the area I had to keep looking them up in a reference book that she provided for me. I also had to be very sure that I was entering only correct data, and checking each line when I was through to ensure accuracy. Do some of these skills sound familiar to you?

The boat picked me up at around noon time, and it was already 88 degrees when they stopped for gas right near the marine mammal center where I was working. I took a picture of them heading in. When I jumped on board, I found that we were using the tracking device again to locate a manatee named Blinky. Rachel was not on board today, so it was up to us to assemble to equipment and try to detect her location. Once we set the VHS to his frequency - 402 - I put on the headphones and started to move the antenna.

The idea is to point the antenna in different directions and listen to the differences in the chirps (beeping sounds). If the chirp is louder in a certain direction, then you let Teresa know which way to steer the boat. It is very difficult to hear the subtle differences in the chirps. Blinky is outfitted with a green and white transmitter which we used the binoculars to locate. We certainly got pretty close to Blinky today, since the chirps were quite loud at some points, but we did not ever find him. I suppose we need more practice using the VHS equipment.

We did however, on the path to Blinky, come across some other manatees in an area called City Island Grass Flats. Some people in a boat beside us noticed that we were manatee researchers and stayed around to watch us document them. They were even pointing at some of them and trying to help us out!

I had the opportunity to run the trolling motor today while Teresa took photographs. When we got into the manatee area and shut off our engine, I had to quickly and carefully get the trolling motor into place so that we did not lose our manatees. Teresa would then let me know in which direction I should head to pull up along side the manatees without giving them a scare. I really had to know my turning angles since she generally directed me by saying things like, "turn 90 degrees to the left" or "45 degrees to the right".

We were also fortunate to have another manatee sighting on our way back to Mote. We saw three manatees that Teresa could identify by name right near our dock. She was able to recognize Clyde who is an adult male with severe tail mutilations on the left part of his fluke, and a scar that looks like stitches on the right side of his penduncal. Pangea, a female, was also spotted due to a large white scar that is just between her eyes and takes up most of her head. It is so large it reminded someone of the super-continent Pangea, hence her nickname. Finally, we also spotted Phish, who has a large white scar in the center of his back. Teresa was also able to recognize that Phish has a brand new scar on the right part of his penduncal. Unfortunately, she can conclude that he has been hit by a boat since he was last sighted and documented a few months ago.

Since we are driving the boat to Matlacha Canal on Monday to take part in a different manatee study, we had some work to do today when we were finished in the field. We put the boat on a trailer and hauled it out of the water with one of the Mote trucks. Once MERV was out, we gave him a thorough cleaning. We even took out all of the tools which get rusty on the water, and used sandpaper to remove any grime that we could.

Finally, Mrs. Frederick and I went down to Pansy Bayou to do our land survey. We saw so many interesting manatee behaviors, but they were too far away to capture on film. Teresa told us about "socializing", which is when manatees roll around with each other, almost like wrestling. She also explained that "nuzzling" is when they look like they are kissing. We were able to observe both of those behaviors, and we even saw a calf riding on mom's back. I wasn't quick enough to get a good shot of that, and the water was murky. If you look carefully however, you may be able to see mom just below the baby as they go back under water. The calf on top has a tail scar, and has her left flipper draped over mom's back to hold on!

I want to thank Mark, Liz, Erica, Dan, Stephanie and of course Prickerbranch for being so focused on a Friday, especially after not being able to see me this morning. I am surprised you were able to work at all with all of your disappointment!

To answer your questions:

1. We use the clock on the boat because it is the most effective way to alert everyone to surfacing manatees. The photographer and data person need to be looking in the same direction from the tower, and the trolling motor person needs to know where they are to position the boat and of course to not hit them. If everyone were just pointing and yelling, "Manatee over here, over there!", we would not be all looking in the appropriate spot. The clock is something that everyone can recognize quite quickly. If I am in the tower and hear 5 o'clock I know to turn around and about how much to turn. Overall, I have found that it is a very useful system.

2. I will not be involved in tagging a manatee. Manatees are tagged in the winter time here at Mote, because in the winters the manatees in Sarasota head up to the Matlacha canal system. It is quite easy for them to set up a net across these narrow canals and capture four manatees to tag. The process of tagging is called telemetry. It takes about one hour per animal, and the rest are left partially submerged in water while they wait their turn. When they tag them they do girth measurements, an ultrasound to test their blubber thickness. Of the manatees tagged this year, only Grover has lost his tag so far.

3. In the winter time, manatees need a warmer water source so they congregate around power plants close by. In the summer, manatees spread far and wide and can travel further distances since there is no need to conserve their energy. This does make data collection a bit harder in the summer months here.

I look forward to the video conference next week. I hope you all have a nice weekend. I will be visiting the aquarium here this weekend and doing some more land surveys. I hope to make a video of Pansy Bayou this weekend that I can send for you to watch. See you all soon!