PAGE 8 - June 23, 2010
The Newscaster/Nature Coast News
Baby Manatee Found Dead in
Speeder - Continued from page 3
approximately 1.5 miles north of Inglis, around 12:32 a.m.
Yankeetown Boat Slip
The officer asked Mort if he should be concerned about any weapons or what
would be considered contraband, such as illegal drugs, and Mort replied no, according to
By Newscaster Correspondent Sally Price
the report. The officer deployed his certified narcotics detection K-9 to sniff the vehicle’s
Steven Myers, Riverside Dr. Yankeetown, noticed buzzards in the boat basin below
exterior, and he gave an positive alert for the presence of narcotics. A search turned up 9
the seawall where he lives. Investigation revealed a dead manatee calf attracting the “road
roaches (marijuana cigarette butts) and a number of marijuana stems and seeds totaling 3.8
kill” crew of birds. A call got a visit by me for another dead baby sea cow in just over a year
grams. Mort was placed under arrest and charged with possession of less than 20 grams of
in this very slip. Last May one of like size was found dead. I arrived soon after the call and
marijuana. He was transported to the Levy County Jail.
found the 4 to 5 foot 50 pound baby dead and washed up to the tall sea wall with buzzards
trying to dine the small carcass A call to the US Coast Guard Station Yankeetown was re-
layed to the FWC Marine Mammal Pathobiology Lab in St Petersburg. I reported the death
to Amber Howell at the lab and that I would get something to cover the body to keep the
buzzards away until she arrived in approximately 2 hours. I started home to get a cover of
some kind and passed the home of Mike Dias on Riverside Dr a few blocks east. I noticed
a plastic water bed mattress and a blow up child’s pool on his pile of discards for pickup.
Grabbing the two items, I headed back to Myers boat slip.
Leaving the camera in the car, which is most unusual, I dragged the covers to
the boat slip to find an alligator of approximately 8 to 9 feet with the baby manatee in his
mouth just turning around to take his lunch back to his home across the river. My appear-
ance frightened him and he bolted throwing the manatee over his head as he ran into a large
limb that had lodged in the boat slip. I flagged 2 family members of the Ollie Lynch family
on kayaks I saw up river from the slip for help. The pair paddled over and pushed the calf
covered with the plastic back to sand near the seawall. I tied a rock on a piece of heavy twine
and threw it over the covered calf and tied it to a pipe on the wall. For several hours 2 large
manatee and a smaller one stayed just off the drop off of the boat slip circling and surfacing
regularly as if they knew their friend was in distress.
Amber from the St. Petersburg lab arrived exactly at 12:15 PM, the time estimated
on her GPS. She backed up the truck, jumped down the seawall, whipped out a knife and
tied that manatee like a professional calf roper in a rodeo. A unique hoist on the truck was
used to lift the lifeless body into the FWC truck. A call from Amber later that day indicated
Amber Howell loads the dead manatee for its trip to the lab in St. Petersburg where necropsies
that there were not enough organs left to really test. She did say a piece of the tail and flipper
are performed on manatees and other marine mammals brought to the MMPL from all over
nail was taken to do a DNA test on to see if this baby was related to prior tested manatees.
the state by sister field stations and zoological parks such as Lowry Park Zoo, Sea World of
To contact the lab, call 727-896-8626.
Orlando and the Miami Seaquarium. Newscaster Photo/Sally Price
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