Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office Deputy Jill Constant was not going to let a manatee die right in front of her.
A few weeks ago when red tide levels in Pinellas County, Florida, were high, Constant got a call that there was something wrong with a manatee in the Intracoastal Waterway. Sometimes citizens misunderstand manatee behavior, but as soon as the Marine and Environmental Lands Unit deputy saw the manatee, she knew it was in deep distress.
“We’re watching it, and it will not go underwater. It just stayed at the surface with labored breathing,” Constant said. When the exhausted manatee desperately tried to beach itself on the rocks so it wouldn’t drown, she knew she had to do something.
“We docked the boat, I took off my equipment, and got in. We stayed in the water for two hours holding its head up until it could be rescued,” she said. The manatee wasn’t thrilled about being rescued though. “At the beginning it was too exhausted, but after a while it had recovered its strength a little and it started thrashing. I thought I was going to drown—a martyr for the cause,” Constant said. When Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) biologists arrived after two hours, they got the manatee back into cleaner waters where it swam off in apparently fine shape.
Manatees are in special need of protection. There are only about 13,000 West Indian manatees left in the world, of which about 6,000 to 7,000 live in Florida. In 2022, some 1,000 Manatees died from boat strikes, red tide events, or starvation from habitat destruction.
Most manatees, even young ones, have visible propeller marks from contact with boats. FWC looked at 10 years of information and found that 96 percent of manatees in that study had propeller scars. Boat strikes account for some 25 percent of all manatee deaths. Special zones in the Intracoastal regulate speed to help keep manatees safer from boat strikes. “It’s slow speed minimum wake in the manatee areas,” Constant said. ” Slow speed minimum wake means that the vessel must be completely off plane and fully settled in the water, producing minimal or no wake behind it.”
Manatees are gentle, friendly animals, but even if they seek you out, touching them is against the law. You can’t feed them or even offer them a freshwater hose from your dock. Anything that interferes with a manatee’s natural, wild behavior can put it in danger. Molestation of manatees can be a felony, depending on the degree. “Education is our most powerful tool,” Constant said. “Most people out here do not have ill intent. They don’t want to hurt a manatee. People just get enamored of how sweet they are, how social they are, and they’ll come right up to you. But it’s that forbidden fruit. You can’t do it.”
As for the troubled manatee Constant and the other deputy from the Marine and Environmental Lands Unit helped save, Constant said she had no doubt about what she needed to do. “This manatee is going to die right in front of us and I’m not letting that happen!”
