INDIAN SHORES, Fla. — A video from Michael McCarthy’s drone shows a group of mating manatees known as an aggregation at Indian Shores Beach.
It’s actually illegal to touch or even chase after the endangered creatures.
McCarthy points out in the video that most people were respectful, but not everyone.
“There were plenty of people that just had to touch them and chase them around,” he said.
McCarthy, who owns See Through Canoe, often looks for marine life to record with his drone. But what he recorded on May 7 is not what he wanted to find.
In the video, people are touching the manatees and surrounding them.
In another of his shots, a man was nearly run over by a massive manatee that could weigh more than a thousand pounds.
“It’s a little surprising. But not uncommon for things like this to happen, said Marie Filipek, senior animal care professional at ZooTampa.
She spends much of her time in the zoo’s Manatee Critical Care Center, rehabbing them from boat strikes or illness with the hope of getting them back to the wild.
She said people need to give manatees space.
“They will come closer to shore. Usually, it’s in mating current, so it will be a group of males and one female that they are trying to breed. So definitely, in that case, you want to give them their space and let nature do its thing. We don’t want to interfere with that. We want these animals populating as they are an endangered species, so we don’t want to interfere with that,” said Filipek.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission said to call them if you see people harassing manatees, including disturbing the herds.
Fines can be up to $100,000 and you can even go to jail.
Michael said he reported this encounter to FWC, but no word of anything came of it.
But in the video, he expressed concern over the crowds confusing the manatees as they tried to move.
“They couldn’t really go anywhere, though, because the crowd followed them when they tried to move up or down the beach,” he said.
As we’ve reported, manatee deaths have been alarmingly high in recent years.
FWC said at least 800 manatees died last year and a record 1,100 died in 2021.
You can call FWC at 800-404-FWCC to report any incidents or injuries.
