Dolphin stranded in the Gowanus Canal

The unanimous judgment of the crowd of Brooklynites crowded on the Union Street Bridge over the Gowanus Canal last night: somebody needs to be getting in the water to save that dolphin. Despite the cold and snow. Despite the unknown oils and toxins in the soon-to-be dredged superfund site. Just somebody, please, help the dolphin.

The crowd of kids and adults wanted to see the dolphin make it. Somebody brought along dolphin recordings and played them on mini-speakers over the water, where the 7-foot  dolphin thrashed on concrete bridge pilings.

But it didn’t happen. The dolphin died after spending the day in the canal, first spotted in the morning at the entrance, then ending its life around 6 p.m. on the concrete pilings under a bridge about 1.8 miles up the dead-end canal. The Times says it was a common dolphin. That means it was most likely a short-beaked common dolphin, Delphinus delphis, making it one of about 120,000 on this side of the Atlantic.

Would-be rescuers from the  Riverhead Foundation told the Times they needed special permission to rescue the marine mammal and were waiting for the 7 p.m. high tide to carry it out on its own. But Robert DiGiovanni, senior biologist at the Riverhead Foundation, told the Daily News that it was the toxic waters holding them back. “It’s not safe for us to get people in the water.” But, towards the end, the dolphin was on the footing of the bridge and people could’ve stood next to it in hip waders.

The dolphin was likely in big trouble to wander off on its own up the canal to begin with. But, once it got there, the canal itself surely didn’t help. It has been shown to have too low of oxygen levels to support life. And its pipes, pilings and concrete make it hard for anybody to get out unscathed.

Read more:

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http://www.iucnredlist.org/details/6336/0 

Nevermind the horrific death of a trainer in 2010 by killer whale Tilikum. Or the various other attacks and deaths. Forget about concerns about how many animals SeaWorld takes from the wild and the growing consensus

Orca at SeaWorld, courtesy of Roger Wollstadt

that marine mammals shouldn’t be captive entertainers. Don’t think about how SeaWorld uses Tilikum as the star of its breeding program. Pay no attention to the massive amount of debt the company is in, thanks to the Blackstone Group, the huge private equity firm that bought the chain of 11 amusement parks for $2.7 billion from Anheuser-Busch in 2009, in a classic leveraged buyout that has left the company drowning in debt.

Blackstone now wants the investing public to take over some of the responsibility of SeaWorld, even as it maintains control.

Blackstone just filed the documentation necessary to sell shares in SeaWorld Entertainment during the holiday week between Christmas and New Year’s, so the amount it hopes to raise is unclear so far, though Bloomberg reports it plans to raise at least $500 million. It’ll be a few months before we know exactly, but the financial details contained in its registration form with the Securities and Exchange Commission reveal a number of fascinating details about Sea World and how it operates that any animal lover should know.

SeaWorld is deep in debt, but its current owners are paying themselves amazingly well

The SeaWorld – Blackstone story is a classic leveraged buy-out tale of sophisticated investors buying a company, loading it up with debt and using it as a cash machine. Blackstone put up about $1 million of its own money to buy SeaWorld, then put the company $1.3 billion in debt, the Orlando-Sentinel reported at the time of the deal. Now the company is $1.8 billion in debt, thanks to the lavish $610.1 million dividends paid in the last two years.

Blackstone did make the company profitable, but nowhere near that much. In 2011, SeaWorld earned $19.1 million but paid Blackstone a $110.1 million dividend. For the first nine months of 2012, SeaWorld paid Blackstone a $500 million dividend–pretty amazing considering the net income was only $86 million. (Coincidentally the same amount it paid in interest on its loans.) “Blackstone extracts another dividend from SeaWorld” is how  The Deal explained it. Writer David Holley noted that S&P downgraded the company’s debt and Moody’s raised its probability that it would default on its loans.

The question this raises for animal lovers is how it will impact the treatment of SeaWorld’s 67,000 animals. That’s always an issue when you put animals to work for a for-profit enterprise. It’s hard to imagine how being over-leveraged will improve the lives of the animals there.

What you’re buying if you buy Sea World shares

Blackstone lists Sea World Entertainment’s total capitalization at $2.3 billion. That’s not what is being sold to the public; Blackstone wants to keep control of the company, but use the public sale of shares to get cash from the public, in part, to pay off a loan that carries 11% interest. So if you’re buying Sea World shares, you won’t really have much say in how the company is run, but you will help its principal owner, Blackstone, pay down high-interest debt.

Other fun facts from the filing:

Nearly 1 in 5 of their marine mammals was taken from the wild

The S-1 filing, as it’s known, reports that “More than 80% of our marine mammals were born in human care.” That means that almost 20% were pulled from the wild, in places like Taiji, Japan, where the movie The Cove documented dolphin slaughter. The film argues that the fishermen don’t make that much money off dolphin meat, but persist because they can occasionally sell a dolphin to an aquarium for about $28,000. A trained dolphin can be sold for $300,000.

Sea World has 67,000 animals

The company boasts that it has 60,000 fish and 7,000 “marine and terrestrial animals.” Remember, Sea World Entertainment includes the animal parks Busch Gardens, which have about 2,700 animals, ranging from lemurs to flamingoes and elephants. Sea World reports that it possesses 29 killer whales, 151 dolphins, and 115 sea lions.

Sea World considers its breeding program an asset

The financial document calls it “successful and innovative,” and notes their genetic diversity. This is odd because Sea World has been criticized for overusing their most dangerous killer whale, Tilikum, to father too many offspring. Drummer and PETA rep Tommy Lee complained publicly that even though they claim Tilikum won’t have any contact with trainers, somebody is still going to have to touch him intimately to extract more sperm.

Sea World is not too worried about fines from regulators

SeaWorld has to list potential risks to investors. It names animal welfare regulations, but doesn’t seem overly nervous. SeaWorld says say it follows the rules of animal care and even in “unusual instances when we are cited for an alleged deficiency, we are most often given the opportunity to correct any purported deficiencies without penalty.” And even if Sea World does have to pay a fine, it’s usually no big deal. “In the past, when we have been subjected to governmental claims for fines, the amounts involved were not material [emphasis mine] to our business, financial condition or results of operations.”

Case in point: In June 2012, a judge ruled that SeaWorld has to make the workplace safer for trainers, but as lawyer Edward Tan explained, the judge also reduced the fine from $75,000 to $12,000.

Sea World has insurance for when whales attack people 

While Sea World reassures investors that it runs a totally safe place, it has to acknowledge in the risks that could harm its business that “injuries or death, while rare, have occurred in the past and may occur in the future.”

To protect the bottom line, Sea World has a policy for “animal enterprise related businesses in the theme park industry.” That said, Sea World admits that it is worried about premiums going up. “We cannot predict the level of the premiums that we may be required to pay for subsequent insurance coverage, the level of any self-insurance retention applicable thereto, the level of aggregate coverage available, or the availability of coverage for specific risks.” In other words, whale attacks are part of the cost of doing business.

They help rescue more than 500 wild animals a year 

SeaWorld and the other parks do generously help some wildlife. They take in orphaned, injured, sick or abandoned wild animals. They don’t get anything in return; if the animals survive, SeaWorld returns them to the wild. In 40-plus years, they’ve treated more than 22,000 wild patients.

Of your $79 ticket, less than a dime goes to the conservation fund

The parks boast that they fund their own SeaWorld and Busch Gardens Conservation Fund.  Though, truth be told, not all that generously. The fund’s website says, “The parks have contributed more than $50 million to wildlife conservation since 1970.” If it were equally divided annually, that would amount to about $1.2 million a year. The company had sales of $1.2 billion for the first nine months of this year. So if you shell out the $79 for an adult ticket, you can feel good knowing roughly 6 – 8 cents of that is going to conservation.

Where to See Whales in the Wild

Every week is shark week in Chatham

In Jaws, the mayor tries to play down the shark attacks because he’s afraid it will scare away the tourists. In the Cape Cod town of Chatham, MA, however, it’s the shark paraphenilia that tourists want.

In July a great white shark bit a body surfer on a sandbar off Truro’s Ballston Beach. The 50-year-old fought back by kicking the shark and ended up with 47 stitches. Obviously,   the t-shirts wouldn’t be as fun if the shark had attacked a little kid instead of a guy who seems like a really competent athlete.

But as long as nobody gets killed, it’s totally fine to sell silly shirts.  Greg Skomal, a state marine biologist with the state Division of Marine Fisheries told CBS this was the first shark attack in MA since 1936.

The sharks are coming to eat seals, which have shown up in bigger numbers since seal hunting became much less popular, even in Canada, and fishermen aren’t allowed to just shoot them as potential competitors. You could potentially see seals (and the sharks who want to eat them) anywhere along Cape Cod, but if you really want to watch them, you head to Chatham, an adorable little town on the elbow of the cape, where seals come in increasing to lounge on Monomoy Island.

 Option 1-See seals (and maybe sharks) from a boat

During the summer and some of the fall, you can try a boat tours. They’re generally kind of expensive and not dog friendly.

Blue Claw has several fall and summer options from Orleans, generally $50 for adults and $45 for kids.

Monomoy Island Ferry has cruises ($35, $30) from Chatham and even a day trip that lets you  walk on Monomoy Island. (It’s run as a charter, so you’ll be paying $360 for up to 6 people).

Monomoy Island Outfitters does charters. Beachcomber ($29,$25) has you take a trolley from North Chatham to a 90 minute seal cruise.

Chatham Water Tours leaves from Chatham’s Fish Pier and charges only $20, $15 for kids. Or just take a ferry to Nantucket ($77, $51) You may be able to see seals along the way and in the harbor on the other side.

Option 2–See them from the shore–faster, cheaper, less annoying to the seals–but less reliable or satisfying.

Look for seals anywhere boats come in. One fisherman told me to check around low tide or (for seals hoping to mooch off boats) late afternoon. The most popular land-based spot to see them is Chatham town beach. I saw several seals on the offshore sandbars. But the most successful spot may be the Chatham Fishing Pier, off Shore Road by Tern Island Sanctuary. You can check the webcam to see what’s going on, but most of the action is in late afternoon when the boats come in.

For that matter, nearly any harbor will get seals around four in the afternoon, too. People see them by the Cape Cod Canal in Sandwich, for example. And then, just pretty much any beach, especially around the elbow of the Cape. I saw seals in the water at the Truro Lighthouse, even though it’s on the other side of the Cape from Chatham. People see them up on the  beach, there, too, or on the sandbars. (This is where the shark attack was, remember.) Nauset Beach in Orleans gets seal visitors, too.

	Where to SEE SEALS (and sea lion and walrus)
	Where to SEE SHARKS

	Cameron	Branson
Destination	Marianas Trench	Puerto Rico Trench
Depth	35,800 ft	28,373 ft
Craft	Deep Sea Challenger	DeepFlight Challenger
Material	foam	carbon fiber and titanium
Goal	visit the Mariana trench many times	reach depths of each ocean
Confidence in critters at great depths	“We’d all like to think there are giant squid and sea monsters down there,” he told the Times.	“We know there are gigantic things down there,” he told the Telegraph.
How vehicle moves	vertical, like a seahorse	with wings or flippers, like a dolphin

Luckily the world has more than one eco-minded, genius gazillionaire. Branson and his team hope to visit the Mariana, too, later this year in a different kind of craft. Branson himself will go down to the Puerto Rico trench. That’s the deepest spot in the Atlantic and is about 7,000 feet shallower.

Nobody is sure if anything could really survive that deep. It’s dark and that means not much plant life. It’s cold–and most creatures prefer the warm, shallow water like the mountainous waters that usually abut the sea trenches. Both land formations are formed by tectonic plates squishing and stretching the earth. And then there’s the incredible water pressure, which has made these explorations so difficult and dangerous.

Of course, we’re all hoping someone will find a whole herd of Loch Ness monsters down there. Or at minimum a giant squid. Certainly something better than the shrimp-like creatures Cameron got to see.

Branson is suitably enthusiastic, hoping his craft, which is bigger, can cruise and call in another sub to take pictures, will find something. He’s got a soft spot for fun creatures and has created a lemur haven, despite taking some slack from doubters.

The only other manned mission to the deepest part of the Mariana Trench was in 1960 when the U.S. Navy sent oceanographers Don Walsh and Jacques Piccard down to the bottom. Near the bottom they saw a flatfish, but Walsh told ScienceFriday last week, biologists insist they really didn’t see it.

“Well, just before we landed, we spotted what we thought was a flatfish, a white flat – like a halibut or a sole, a foot long. And that was quite a sighting, if true, of a higher-order marine vertebrate in such – at such a great depth. And it was a bottom-dwelling type of fish, so it meant that it was where it belonged and that there was food down there and sufficient oxygen to support it. Now Jacques Piccard…and I were not ichthyologists. We were engineers. We were, if you would, test pilots of this vehicle trying to prove out its capability. So in the subsequent years, we’ve been advised by all kinds of scientists that we didn’t see that.”

But what if conventional wisdom is wrong?

The first crew never got a good look because they stirred up so much silt. Cameron had to head up early because of a technical problem. He hopes to return. His mission, backed by National Geographic, was always to get down there a few times.

Although the story of two rich geniuses racing in their private subs to the bottom of the ocean is delightful, really Branson didn’t plan to dive to the Mariana Trench himself.  His partner, Chris Welsh, is heading there (and, yes, the trip was delayed). Branson is going on the second of the five legs of the adventure, one for the bottom of each ocean. The Puerto Rico Trench is near a breeding ground for humpback whales (they like shallow, warm water) and plenty of other marine mammals and flying fish near the surface, NOAA has found.

The vessels are slightly different, but both plan on using little helper “lander” craft that go down first and drop bait. Welsh says on their blog: “The Virgin sub is excellent for large scale exploration and identifying areas worthy of more detailed examination, and Jim’s sub is perfect for detailed examination of those sites once found.”

For now let’s remember that not seeing something doesn’t prove it isn’t there. Animal tourists know to well that you can go to the exact location of a previous sighting and come up with nothing after a whole day of patient waiting. It’s as if human beings had only spent a few hours in Alaska and came back thinking it was just snow: it is mainly just snow, but there are also polar bears and walruses in certain parts. I’m just happy there are two gazillionaires willing to go looking for new creatures down there in the least explored place on earth.

Where to SEE WHALES

Read about Branson’s mission to save lemurs

SEE ANIMALS IN AUSTRALIA

Bill Deerr lassos a seal

Brigatine, NJ’s Marine Mammal Stranding Center is gearing up for busy season. The seal and turtle hospital 10 minutes from the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City gets most of its human visitors in summer. But seals tend to land sick or injured on beaches from January to April or May. You don’t get to pet them or anything, but you can still come on Sundays in winter and see the process.

“Folks will only get to see the animals via TV camera because the little darlings are inside two air-conditioned buildings that are not accessible to the public,” says co-director Sheila Dean, who started the quiet little center with her husband Robert Schoelkopf in 1978.

Right now the center has one cold-stunned turtle in critical condition and one gray seal, who has been recovering for nine months and is set to be released Wednesday in Tuckerton Bay.  A big colony of harbor seals lives off shore and she can either join them or just head out to sea.

They had both worked at Atlantic City’s old timey amusement park the Steel Pier in 1976. She was a seal and dolphin trainer; he was a manager. She likes helping the animals back to the wild much better than teaching them tricks. “Sure, some live longer in captivity, but at what cost?” Together they would go out on calls for stranded marine mammals, even though they didn’t have a real place to care for them.

Over the last 35 years they’ve been perfecting the operation, which now includes a marine mammal ambulances (one for whales and dolphins, another for smaller creatures), boats, rehab pools and museum.

Check out the Marine Mammal Stranding Center

The center is feeling the recession and needs more donations. They even have a wish list of physical items.

Where to go to see seals

Basking sharks have huge mouths but they won't eat you. They're vegetarians. / MA Office of Energy & Environmental Affairs

Some beaches in the Hamptons have been closed this week for basking sharks–the giant, gorgeous, totally non-threatening, vegetarian fish that can reach 20 feet long. They’re like big manatees, but with a scary name. Is New York missing out on an animal tourism opportunity just because they’re called sharks?

The Suffolk County Parks department told the Long Island Press that even though the sharks won’t bite people, they’re worried they’re so big they could spook and hit someone. The paper says that swimmers have been banned since “Tuesday afternoon after about a half a dozen nearly 20-foot-long sharks were spotted about 15 feet offshore.”

I haven’t ever heard of these feared whale shark collissions. I guess it’s the same danger a rambunctious family dog could pose to a small child; they won’t bite but they could knock them down. But basking sharks aren’t rambunctious at all. The Basking Shark Project says they normally move at 2.5 to 4, but they have been known to leap out of the water, either to remove parasites or impress mates.

What is well documented is that people LOVE to swim with basking sharks.  It’s a big tourism draw worldwide, especially around the UK, just like manatees are in Florida. In fact, the Basking Shark Project has the same problem of people getting too friendly with the basking sharks: “Basking Sharks are relatively docile creatures – often tolerant to approaches by boats and divers. This does not, however, give reason for these animals to be exploited as they have been on occasion.” In fact they made a code of conduct similar to the Florida manatee rules: stay on the surface, stay back 4m and don’t pet the basking shark.

Since these basking sharks show up regularly, maybe it’s time to set some rules and encourage safe viewing here instead of closing the shore.

Where to SEE SHARKS

Where to SEE WHALES

The range of the basking shark is huge, but the IUCN Red List says they're vulnerable.

Very large basking shark caught in a cod trap leader in the 1980s in Conception Bay, Newfoundland, Canada. The environmental impact of all types of fishing extend beyond the target species. / Derek Keats

Budget deal shafts wolves

Remember how President Obama was supposed to have bravely stood up to House Speaker Boehner demands that to throw a bunch of right-wing political provisions into the budget. The New York Times says that when Boehner asked about the riders on abortion and other policies, he was rebuffed: “Nope. Zero,” the president said to the speaker. Mr. Boehner tried again. “Nope. Zero,” Mr. Obama repeated. “John, this is it.”

Well, the Center for Biological Diversity says not so much. They report that Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) is leading a charge in the Senate that would take wolves off the endangered species list in Idaho and Montana. And maybe lead to the same deal in  Washington and Oregon, too. The near-secret rider would “set a horrific precedent to further undermine the Endangered Species Act by excluding other species on political whim and preventing environmental groups from being able to enforce the law,” the center says.

The Idaho Statesman says Idaho Rep. Mike Simpson successfully slipped the rider into the budget compromise in the house.

It’s basically the same settlement worked out among the USFWS, hunters and those who sued to protect the wolf. But it’s also the same one knocked down by Judge Donald Molloy Saturday. Not a huge surprise, since he was the one who got rid of the first plan to say wolves were endangered in some state but not others. He reasoned that not all the lawsuit parties agreed and that “the District Court must abide by the responsibilities that flow from past political decisions made by the Congress.” So, at least he thinks that that rider will make it okay.

NOAA protects Orcas in Puget Sound–mostly

Because the number of killer whales in Puget Sound has been shrinking as the number of whale-watching boats have been climbing, NOAA made the rules for whale-watching boats tougher. They’ll now have to stay back 200 yards. But, like many whale-watching regulations, the rules leave out some boats. You also can’t intercept a whale or lay in wait in its path.

They do include all types of personal watercraft: motor boats, sail boats and kayaks. So it means that rules apply–at least theoretically–to the personal and rental craft that often bother marine mammals the most. But they specifically exclude vessels actively fishing commercially, cargo ships in lanes and government and research vessels, the San Juan Islander says.

NOAA originally proposed setting up a kind of orca summer sanctuary on San Juan Island’s west side. But they caved to fishing pressure and say they’re still thinking about this part. Maybe just a smaller sanctuary? It’s amazing how that manatees in Florida understand that their little penned off areas are no-go zones for people.

Pennsylvania moves porcupines from “protected” to “open season” after four complaints in four years

After 30 years of protecting porcupines, the Pennsylvania game commission is set to declare open season–meaning you can kill them anytime, anywhere. It’s always been legal to kill porcupines that have been causing damage, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports, but some of the people who wanted to kill them were apparently confused by the rules and complained. The Inquirer says data shows the state only received four reports of porcupine damage in the last four years. And they say that the game commission member Dave Putnam “acknowledged the scarcity of porcupine complaints and lack of data.” They haven’t even bothered to survey how many porcupines they have before they start allowing shooting them all.

	Where to SEE WHALES
	Where to SEE WOLVES (plus coyote, coywolf and any wild canid)

The Japanese government continues to reassure the world. They’ve closed off fishing nearby. The ocean dilutes the toxins. The common radioactive material, iodine, has a half-life of just 8 days. But not everyone is so confident. Japanese National Federation of Fisheries Cooperatives says the toxic water will kill off their business regardless of whether it kills the fish. They’ve shut off the big leak, but continue to dump less radioactive water. Airborne particles also end up in the water.

“My biggest concern is the lack of information. We still don’t know the whole range of radioactive compounds that have been released into the ocean, nor do we know their distribution,” Ken Buesseler, a senior scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution on Cape Cod, told Grossman. “We have a few data points from the Japanese — all close to the coast — but to understand the full impact, including for fisheries, we need broader surveys and scientific study of the area.”

The Japanese news service, NHK, reported cesium-137 a million times the legal limit at least 20 miles from the plant. Xinhua says low levels of cesium-137 and -134 have turned up in 22 of 34 coastal provinces. The Christian Science Monitor reported that the Japanese plant has already released 80% of the amount cesium-137 released by Chernobyl–and that’s only 10% of the amount it has in the three reactors in worst shape.

Kyodo News advises the Japanese that the big worry is Cesium, which has a 30-year half life and “tends to accumulate in the muscle…It is also possible for it to become concentrated in bigger fish in the food chain.” One study shows the half life in fish may be only 50 days–but that may just mean they urinate it out–back into the water. Kyodo recommends discarding of fish skins and offal. Fish high up the food chain are pretty much the same ones you avoid for mercury poisoning: tuna, shark, swordfish, king mackerel and tilefish. (And for the Japanese, dolphins and whales.)

Grossman did a thorough job of tracking the marine life impacts of other radiation spills in the ocean. Here’s what she reports.

• A UK plant released cesium into the Irish Sea in the 1950s and contaminated fish, seals and porpoises. A 1999 study found those marine mammals still had 300 times the radiation as the water.
• Radioactive material from Sellafield and from the nuclear reprocessing plant at Cap de la Hague in France spread to the North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans.
• The Russians are not forthcoming on where and why they’ve released radiation, but in the 1990s, however, seals died of blood cancer in the Barents Sea and millions of starfish, shellfish, seals and porpoises died in the White Sea.

It’ll be a long time before we know the impact of the radioactive water release around Japan.

American Pro Dive's tour featured just one sleeping manatee. We'd wait for him to come up for air

Manatee lovers and biologists complain that some commercial manatee tours go too far in chasing, petting and just plain annoying sea cows. But for tourists who just want to see, swim with or maybe even touch a manatee, there’s no way to really know which ones they’re talking about. Asking locals, American Pro Diving Center came up again and again as a shop they consider a bit aggressive. So I decided to check it out.

First, let’s put the controversy in context. Manatee guide and activist Tracy Colson filmed tourists kicking and riding mantees–something operators say represents the worst of the worst behavior. Rules were tightened, but Colson and others still want a no touch policy. Petting manatees sounds benign–compared to boaters who plow over them–but if molested manatees leave the spring tourist areas, they could freeze to death. Of 767 manatees found dead last year, 279 froze compared to 83 hit by boats (most of the rest were undetermined). On the other hand, a lot of manatees don’t seem to mind people and even approach.

American Pro Diving Center is about the biggest outfit in the Homosassa/Crystal River area, with a handsome shop right on Route 44/19, complete with manatee sculpture, fun manatee door handles, scuba classes and excursions, a diving classroom, jet ski rental and pretty much the best souvenir shop.

I went President’s Day weekend, which turned out to be peak season. The 80 degree weather drew in more people even as it made it possible for manatees to leave the springs. Reservations were tight; I got on a 7 am tour that cost $52.50 ($29.50 for the tour, $13 for the wet suit rental and $10 for the snorkel, mask and fins). Once there, I switched to a 6:30, got a wet suit and changed into it right in the store. We watched the USFWS video, then our guide Zach warned us there would be no bathrooms on the boat and only skeevy ones at the dock and we’d have to drive ourselves over and pay $5 parking. My husband had just dropped me off, but another family volunteered to take me. He tells us no bananas on the boat, but other foods are okay.

Zach acts like a surfer dude and looks exactly like Sean Scott Williams of “Dude, Where’s My Car?” He’s a good-natured native of the area and wants to become a commercial diver. As we pull out he lays down some rules: only touch the manatee with one hand (so nobody thinks you’re riding it), don’t touch them on their face, “flipper pit” (area under the flipper where babies nurse) or tail (because they are neckless and can’t turn around quickly). “Other than those three places, you’ve still got like a good eight to ten feet of manatee to scratch on,” he says.

He explains the banana ban: “It’s been like hundreds and hundred of years if you bring a banana on a boat. And I never believed it until last year. I hold a record on my boat where everybody has got in and at least seen a manatee and, like, 90% of them probably come up and give ’em a scratch. And I find manatees normally pretty fast. One day somebody brought a banana on the boat. I saw it. I thought ‘Yeah, okay, whatever,’ and I spent, no joke, two-and-a-half hours looking for a manatee.”

Fun story and a big contrast to my earlier cruise with Captain Mike, who emphasized over and over that any manatee touching should be the manatee’s idea and should be considered a magical event, not a guaranteed result. He drilled into us that the Forrest Gump saying that “Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get” applied to manatee tours.

We head to an area called Jurassic Spring, which that state of Florida describes as a 100-foot cove, 800 feet east of a Hunter Spring Run, blocked off by a floating PVC pipe, that is a local swim area. It kind of looks a concrete indent into somebody’s backyard.

American Pro doesn’t have the fancy, inflatable dive vests that Captain Mike’s Sunshine River Tours had. I’m a pain-in-the-ass non-swimmer. Zach tells me to just hang onto a life jacket, but don’t put it over my head or I won’t be able to stick my head underwater. Or, if I really want to wear it, he offers, he can just push my head underwater at the right time. “When you’re out there and a manatee swims away, don’t worry,” he tells everyone. “I’ll always have a manatee with me. I’ll have two to three people come over at a time.”

“I need my swimmer,” he jokingly calls me. Because I’m holding the life jacket, I can’t really move myself. So, he drags me like a barge. Water gets in my mask. I cough. “Don’t freak on me,” Zach says. Later he says that water got in the mask because I was smiling–happens all the time when people see a manatee. I’m pretty sure it was just a crappy mask.

He drags me into the area and over a sleeping manatee. Just like that, I’m maybe five feet from a manatee. I watch quietly as little fish clean him off. Amazing.

Other snorkelers come. I try to get out of their way, but can’t maneuver. Zach warns me that I’m about to kick the manatee, who is coming up for air. The manatee is small and moves closer to the ropes. Zach says he’s about ready to get up for the day; he takes a breathe every six or seven minutes and each time moves further out of the area.

Zach asks who hasn’t touched a manatee? I’m among the minority who raises their hand. “Did you get to pet the manatee, sweetie?” a dad asks his daughter. Zach swims by and hauls me over the manatee. When it gets up swims I reach out and touch it. It’s slimy. That’s about it. There was no connection between us. It looks like he has fingerprints from touching. Another snorkeler complains of getting jostled by the crowd in the water.

An American Pro boat full of scuba divers pulls up and Zach herds us back to the boat. “Do you think we’ll be going somewhere else?” one of the dozen or so other snorkelers asks me? I assume so, we’ve only been out here maybe an hour. When we’re all on the boat, Zach goes by to check out an area called “the slide,” an even smaller concrete indent, but he’s checking for his next tour, not us. Some people think they see a manatee there, but Zach says there isn’t one and we head back.

We’re happy we got to see a manatee, but then it starts to sink that the extent of our adventure was to spend an hour snorkeling off somebody’s backyard, hovering over a single sleeping manatee, touch it as it comes up for air. There is quiet grumbling as we head back, passing six or seven manatee tour boats headed in. One of the competing driver quit American Pro because it was too “fast-paced” for him, Zach says. A fellow passenger wonders if they broke the rules by following the manatee around.

As we pull in Zach, points to a sign saying “I work for food tips” and says it’s true. Throughout the tour, Zach was filming with an underwater camera. He encourages us to watch the footage, which has already been set to music, in the crazy busy store. Price tag: $40. I decline. I ask Zach what he thinks of people who want to ban manatee touching. “It’ll never pass,” he says. “Crystal River would be nothing without manatees. It would kill the town. There’d be nothing but the power plant.”

Touching the manatee was about the least touching part of my manatee experience. It was like the wildlife equivalent of paying 50 cents–or in this case $50–to see a girl lift her shirt in a glass booth. My favorite part was a couple days earlier on Captain Mike’s when I was floating in the water by myself and a manatee swam up to me. I liked the banana on the boat story more than I liked touching the manatee. I hate when animal tour guides go overboard in the precautions, so you can hardly see or enjoy the wildlife. The American Pro Diving Center seemed overplay the touch part and underplay the connection people are seeking with these manatees.

• Read about a more fun snorkeling with manatee tour
• Where to Go See Manatees
• Places to See Wildlife in Florida
• Go Whale Watching

Blue Springs State Park Manatee Family

Whether it’s whales, seals or manatees, seeing them from the shore is the Holy Grail of wildlife watching. It’s easy. It’s (usually) free or cheap. It’s family friendly. And, most important to marine biologists, it doesn’t bother the animals at all. This area had so much trouble with manatee harassment the wildlife refuge set up emergency rules in the fall for Crystal River. But seeing manatees from the shore in the Homosassa/Crystal River area of Florida, the manatee capital of the world, is still not that easy to do. Luckily there are a few other options elsewhere in Florida.

The Homosassa/Crystal River area hot springs draw hundreds of manatees every winter. But even though the area is overrun with tourists in February, there’s hardly any centralized information on where an how to see them. The towns are painfully lacking an obvious shore-based option, easily accessible to families with strollers, canes, non-swimmers, the over-weight or sun-sensitive, small kids, seniors, dogs or people in wheel chairs.

Part of the charm of the area is that it hasn’t been hit by chain store America or the typical T-shirt shops that splatter coastal attractions. But, that doesn’t mean it’s all cutesy local. There’s an endless series of dollar stores, auto body shops and motorcycles. And there are few of the traveler’s infrastructure: no local coffee shop and not even a Starbucks or even Dunkin Donuts. The only local ice cream shop shut down in the middle of a holiday weekend because it was too stressful (though there is a DQ).

Here are the big two shore options in the Crystal River Area:

The Bridge — There are actually two bridges over the Crystal River, though they are difficult to find. Off Route 19, follow signs to the Crystal River NWR or to the Dive Center of the Port Hotel and Marina. Neighbors don’t like it, but people park at the refuge or along the roads and walk to one of two bridges on SE and SW Kings Bay Drive. They cross the passage that leads to Three Sisters. You will have to go when it’s cold (late December to early February) to get a view from here.

Homosassa Springs Wildlife State Park lets you see manatees visiting from the wild (late Dec.-early Feb.) and captive manatees that either can’t be released or are in temporary care. In the winter wild manatees come in the lagoon and you may see them from the shore. You can see a pen of nonreleaseable female manatees getting fed cabbage. Bonus species: red wolves, sandhill cranes, flamingos, key deer, whooping cranes, bald eagles, panther. Adults, $13; Kids $5. It opens at 9.

We tried hiking into the Chassahowitzka NWR (via the Withalocooche State Forest Homosassa Tract off 19) and got nowhere near manatees or the shore, though we did cross a creek that in theory they could have visited. The refuge confirmed those were the two main spots.

About an hour south in Tampa, you can see them just minutes off I-75 at the Tampa Electric Company’s Manatee Viewing Area. It’s a sweet set-up, with plenty of room on the platforms, bathrooms, food, exhibits and a trail. We went in mid-February and saw about 25, which I thought was pretty spectacular. One of the guides said there were “hardly any” compared to a week earlier when they had 300! There are a couple other power plants around Florida where you can see manatees drawn by the warm run-off water.

There’s a nuclear power plant right in Crystal River that draws manatees with its warm water. But Crystal Energy says that because it’s a nuclear plant security is too tight for manatee tourists. You can’t see the manatees there by land or sea. I looked them up on Google Maps and I’m pretty sure I see some manatees in the water from the aerial view.

The closest natural shore-based manatee viewing area may be Blue Springs State Park, which is about two hours away. There’s a gorgeous boardwalk overlooking an even more stunning weepy St. John’s River. The staff told us we’d just missed the big show, the manatees had abandoned the spring. But we walked out and found a mother and calf lounging by the dock, delighting a crowd. I don’t need 100 manatees to be impressed; just one or two will do. The baby nuzzled the mother, then took off on his own, leaving mom to trail behind. They offer tours, but the path is easy on both you and the mantee. (I do with they’d replace the metal docks with more of the wood boardwalk because the manatees didn’t seem to like the noise of kids jumping.)

• Where to Go See Manatees
• Places to See Wildlife in Florida
• Go Whale Watching