Wayward Florida manatee eludes Memphis rescuers
By Scott Powers
The Orlando Sentinel
(MCT)
ORLANDO, Fla. - Apparently Manny the mystery Memphis manatee isn't in any hurry to go home.
Federal, Tennessee and city officials, a SeaWorld team expert in rescuing manatees and others converged Thursday on a Memphis backwater of the Mississippi River. They came to save the poor creature, who has been seen hanging around in water too cold for it, at least 700 miles from home.
But when rescuers went to get it Thursday, the manatee was gone. They searched most of the day, then gave up, hoping for better luck Friday.
SeaWorld's team, led by rescue director Bill Hughes, is in the lead. SeaWorld manatee rescuers capture wayward or injured manatees throughout the Southeast, and have the equipment and experience.
Back at SeaWorld Orlando, they have the manatee rescue center, where they take injured manatees and rehabilitate them until they can be re-released into the wild. That's why federal officials called SeaWorld in. But before rescuers can capture the Memphis manatee and bring it to Orlando, someone has to find it again.
"We went up the river. We went down the river," said Nicole Adimey, a biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, who directs the federal manatee rescue, rehabilitation and release program. "We took the boat out and went to a warm-water outfall, totally expecting the animal to be there. And it was not there. We're kind of scratching our heads. We're at a loss."
The Mississippi River is no easy place to find a lazy, wandering sea cow. The river is famously muddy. Black water, it's called. The Muddy Mississippi. And this is no time to search for anything there. Midwestern storms have raised the river 8 to 10 feet in the past few days, stirring up even more silt, making the water even muddier and submerging even more brush.
If that's not enough of a challenge, try finding a manatee on a rainy, foggy day like Thursday. Pedro Ramos tried, among others.
"There's basically no visibility. It's really dark. You can't see anything once it goes underwater," said Ramos, supervisor of animal care at SeaWorld and a member of the park's six-person manatee-rescue team in Memphis.
Thursday's effort didn't suffer from lack of help. SeaWorld and U.S. Fish and Wildlife got help searching and directing traffic from the U.S. Coast Guard, the Memphis Police Harbor Patrol and the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency, among others.
For a while they used a helicopter, but the weather grounded it. They also were using side-scanning sonar, similar to the devices used to search for pieces of the space shuttle in Texas lakes after the 2003 Columbia explosion.
But the bad weather kept everyone out of the river for much of the morning. When the weather cleared some, the river didn't. What's more, the banks are thick with submerged brush that can't be searched because boats can't get back there, Ramos said. And manatees love submerged brush.
While the manatee's appearance in Memphis astonished wildlife officials - who can't imagine a sea cow swimming 720 miles upriver - the length and difficulty of the search didn't surprise anyone, even though officials had been trying to keep a watch on the creature. Manatees can slip in and out of sight, even when they're being watched. Searches sometimes take days, biologist Adimey said.
All the sightings this week occurred in a backwater area near downtown Memphis, known as the Wolf River Harbor, and that's where the search is focused. The Wolf River itself was diverted to another place years ago, leaving a harbor about 100 yards to 200 yards across and about 3 1/2 miles long. It's murky water and up to 28 feet deep, said Lt. Ed Vidulich of the Memphis Police Harbor Patrol.
But it's also quiet water, with no current. And that makes it a far easier place to search than the alternative, the Mississippi itself.
One search team did check out the Mississippi on Thursday. Memphis police hauled some of the rescuers about 12 miles downriver to search the outflow at the T.H. Allen Electric Generation Plant, thinking the manatee might have gone there seeking warm water. No luck.
Still, rescuers were optimistic that Friday will be better, Ramos said. The weather forecast is better. They plan to start again at first light and expect to get the helicopter up today.
Memphis residents, who gave the manatee its "Manny" nickname, have been particularly enthusiastic.
"They're very excited they have a manatee there," Adimey said. "I just wish we could find the darn thing."
