Tired of Florida Cold, Manatee Post Up in Power Plant Discharge

Manatees suffering from Florida’s prolonged heat wave are beginning to interact with the heat from the state’s electricity grid.

According to Associated Press report, manatees are gathering around the Florida Power & Light Company plant in Riviera Beach, where the company opened the Manatee Lagoon attraction eight years ago. So, manatees are finding salvation this winter in the Sunshine State.

Manatees grow to about three feet (3 meters) and weigh between 800 and 1,200 pounds (363 kilograms to 544 kilograms). They come from the waters of Florida, which are usually warm.

But a polar vortex descended on the United States last week and temperatures were cooler than average in Florida, making the manatee’s usually warm home a bit cooler. So, the manatees went to the warm—and very, very clean—water coming out of the power plant.

“Manatees are a unique species that we have in our waters here in Florida, because they are a sentinel species, which means they are an indicator of any water problem that we may have or any environmental problem that we may have,” Rachel. Shanker, director of education at Manatee Lagoon, told the AP. “They’re the first animals that start to respond to any change that’s happening.”

Over the past few years, Florida’s manatees have faced severe starvation. A major loss of seagrass, the birds’ favorite food, was caused by algal blooms. Endangered manatees — listed as endangered as of 2017 — have been decimated statewide, and in 2021 the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission estimates that 1,100 manatees will die.

Things got worse until the 2022 government he went to feed the meat heads of romaine lettuce. The following year, conservation groups announced their intention to sue the US Fish and Wildlife Services for failing to protect manatees.

“Manatees come here to Manatee Lagoon for the warm water, but we don’t have a lot of seaweed right here on our property,” Shanker told the AP. “And so they’ll come here to Manatee Lagoon to warm up, then when they get hungry, they’ll go out to find beds of seaweed, and they’ll eat until they’re full, and they’ll get cold, they’ll come back to our warm water to warm up.” According to Shanker, the plant uses seawater to cool the plant but it doesn’t change – in other words, it’s warm seawater.

Seagrass populations along the Atlantic coast have recovered since their deaths, and manatee populations have increased accordingly; The number of manatee deaths last year (565 deaths) was “well below the average (739) for the last five years,” according to Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

The population is still threatened, and Florida is threatened no stranger to natural disasters which can disturb the animal’s habitat. But recent statistics have manatees on the uptick, and that’s something to celebrate.