Celebrity Manatee Survived Florida's Harsh Freeze

OC_Web@usgs.gov (Office of Communications and Publishing) — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 11:41:51 EDT

Ilya, an adventurous manatee that wandered as far north as Cape Cod last summer, has recently been sighted at several locations around Miami’s Biscayne Bay, confirmed U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) biologists.

After a winter of harsh conditions that led to hundreds of manatee deaths in Florida, Ilya’s survival was welcome news to biologists and veterinarians who rescued Ilya from the dangerously cold waters of New Jersey last October.

“He doesn’t have any new scars and he’s doing really well,” said Kit Curtin, a scientist contracted by USGS who photographed Ilya. “We think he spent the winter in southeast Florida, where the Gulf Stream can have a warming effect,” she added.

Before being rescued from New Jersey, Ilya had been spotted up and down the Atlantic Coast throughout the summer, making appearances in the Chesapeake Bay before wandering as far north as East Dennis, a small town on the northern side of Cape Cod, Massachusetts. His widespread travels made him an aquatic celebrity.

The USGS biologists confirmed Ilya’s identity by the white scar on his head and notches on his tail, unique markings that match his record in a visual identification database that is maintained to research the manatee population. The database, known as MIPS (Manatee Individual Photo-identification System), contains photos and identification notes for thousands of individual manatees, who are assigned a reference number so that their locations, new scars, health, and reproductive habits can be updated over the course of their lifetime.

Often, researchers go a step further and name the manatees that they tag and follow with radio or satellite equipment.

“We’re all pleased that Ilya survived despite January’s extreme freeze,” said USGS biologist Cathy Beck, who researches manatee biology for the Sirenia Project.

She added, “Ilya’s survival against the odds is one of those stories that really fuels our research – why did Ilya survive when so many others succumbed to the cold? Was it because he knew how to find a warm water shelter, was he just in good physical condition, or did his genes somehow give him an advantage? Those are some of the questions we are trying to answer through the MIPS database.”

The Sirenia Project provides survival estimates of adult manatees, scientific details about their biology, and has even helped test the effectiveness of proposed management approaches with computer models. The scientific information is used by state and federal agencies to develop effective plans to protect and conserve manatee populations.

When asked about the likelihood that Ilya would return up north, Curtin replied, “Male manatees usually start their migrations in April, so just because he’s down in Florida now doesn’t mean he might not start a trek back again this year.”

For more information on USGS manatee research, visit the Southeast Ecological Science Center Web site.

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Recovery Funding for the Northern Mariana Islands and Other Volcano Observatories to Improve Monitoring and Public Safety

OC_Web@usgs.gov (Office of Communications and Publishing) — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 16:59:41 EDT

Residents and critical infrastructure in the nation’s six highest-risk volcanic areas—including the Northern Mariana Islands -- will benefit from increased monitoring and analysis as a result of Recovery Act funds being channeled into volcano monitoring, Secretary Salazar announced today.

The U.S. Geological Survey is planning to use $15.2 million of its American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds to upgrade volcano monitoring and the analysis and distribution of eruption information at the five volcano observatories that cover Wyoming, Alaska, Hawaii, the Northwest, California, as well as the network that covers the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands.

“These stimulus funds will not only create or preserve jobs, but also could very well preserve lives,” said Secretary Salazar. “The funds help protect both people on the ground as well as airline passengers flying over the eruption-prone regions. At the same time that the funds are helping public safety, they are also spurring scientific innovation with economic benefits.”

The Northern Marianas, an island archipelago in the western Pacific, contains some of the United States’ most active explosive volcanoes. They threaten not only international air and shipping routes, but also the CMNI’s main island of Saipan and the U.S. Territory of Guam. A large eruption in the 1980s required the evacuation of the northern islands, and former residents cannot return because of inadequate volcano monitoring.

ARRA funds will be devoted to upgrading existing networks on two islands, Anatahan and Sarigan, to full operation, and to enhancing the monitoring of volcanic sulfur dioxide gas on Saipan, as the gas from nearby Anatahan periodically poses a health hazard there.

Alaska Volcano Observatory monitors this area, in cooperation with scientists from the Hawaii and Cascades volcano observatories.

Work to be conducted with ARRA funds is divided into six projects, coinciding with the six high-risk volcanic areas in the United States. These allocations are $950,000 for the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory, $7.56 million for the Alaska Volcano Observatory, $2.4 million for the Cascades Volcano Observatory in Washington state, $3.3 million for the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, $200,000 for the Long Valley Observatory in California and $800,000 for upgrading networks in the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas.

The funds for all of the observatories will support universities and local government agencies as scientific partners in volcano observatory activities, as well as private sector companies that manufacture scientific instruments, provide aviation services, and supply computer expertise

The United States and its territories contain 169 volcanoes considered capable of erupting. One, Kilauea in Hawaii, has been erupting continuously for the past 26 years, at times inundating residential areas with lava and at other times requiring national park closures due to explosions and toxic gas.

Another, Redoubt Volcano in Alaska, shot ash clouds to heights of more than 50,000 feet several times this year. The three-month long eruption appears to have paused and may have ended, but not before severely disrupting aviation operations, repeatedly dusting Alaskan communities with ash, and forcing an oil storage facility to suspend operations.

The USGS volcano observatories warn of impending eruptions, track ongoing eruptions in real time, and assist communities and the flying public in minimizing their vulnerability to volcano hazards. Monitoring volcanoes is a diverse activity that requires networks of geophysical instruments on volcanoes transmitting data to observatories, coupled with the capabilities to detect ash, volcanic gas, and hot spots with satellite imagery; to measure gas and acquire thermal imagery from aircraft; and to understand past behavior of the volcanoes and what human activities and infrastructure are at risk.

Volcano monitoring is only effective if linked to rapid means for communication of hazard information to communities, businesses, government agencies, and the public. ARRA funds will be used to modernize instrumentation and information systems to state-of-the-art, providing the necessary tools to communicate hazard information quickly to those who need it.

For more information:

USGS Newsroom

Celebrity Manatee Survived Florida's Harsh Freeze

Recovery Funding for the Northern Mariana Islands and Other Volcano Observatories to Improve Monitoring and Public Safety