Partnership Helps with Manatee Protection in Alabama
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For Immediate Release: June 7 , 2011
Note: High resolution jpeg images of Alabama manatees, Zewie and Bama, are available upon request.
Bama and Zewie are two endangered manatees who have been recently added to Save the Manatee Club’s Adopt-A-Manatee program. The Club is a Florida-based national nonprofit manatee conservation organization. Frequently sighted in Alabama waterways each year since 2009, the manatees are being tracked by Dauphin Island Sea Lab’s (DISL) Manatee Sighting Network in Alabama.
The partnership between the Club and DISL came about through the efforts of Ruth Carmichael, Senior Marine Scientist at DISL, and Katie Tripp, Director of Science and Conservation for the Club. “DISL has a growing manatee tagging and stranding program, and they are interested in expanding manatee education activities,” said Tripp. “Ruth knew about our adoption program and she contacted me to discuss ways we might work together to help manatees in Alabama.”
A portion of the proceeds from adoptions of Bama and Zewie will be used to help fund DISL’s stranding response and outreach efforts. Save the Manatee Club’s public awareness waterway signs and boat decals are also being adapted for distribution in Alabama. Each person who adopts Bama or Zewie will receive a boat decal with DISL’s stranding number to report manatee sightings or injuries in Alabama as well as a brochure with more information on DISL’s Manatee Sighting Network. These materials will be included in addition to the adoption certificate and biography that are provided for all of Save the Manatee Club’s adoptees.
Manatees are concentrated primarily in Florida in the winter, usually November through March. But in the summer months, they are much more widely distributed and sightings in Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina are relatively common. It was in 2007 that DISL started their Manatee Sighting Network to track manatees in Mobile Bay and the surrounding waters. During the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico last year, Carmichael and DISL staff watched for manatees traveling through the oil spill, and they continue to monitor the impact of the spill on manatees and their food sources.
“Our data on the timing and movement patterns of manatees from Mississippi through western Florida provided important baseline information that will allow us to continue to assess the effects of the oil spill and any other environmental changes on manatees and their habitat in the northern Gulf of Mexico,” stated Carmichael.
Bama, a female manatee, made history on September 4th, 2009, when she became the first manatee ever captured and tagged in Alabama waters. Bama quickly became a local attraction. In the spring, she has been known to feed near the USS Alabama battleship, located at Battleship Memorial Park on Mobile Bay. Summer sightings of Bama typically include Delvan Bay in the Mobile-Tensaw Delta and Dog River, a tributary of Mobile Bay. In the winter, Bama has returned to warm waters near Crystal River, Florida.
Zewie is a male manatee, first documented in 1987 by the U.S. Geological Survey’s Sirenia Project (USGS) as a dependent calf in Crystal River, Florida. From l987 through 2009, Zewie was only sighted at Crystal River. But in June 2009, he was spotted in a mating herd in Alabama’s Mobile-Tensaw Delta. On August 11, 2010, Zewie became the fourth manatee captured and tagged in Alabama.
Click here for or more information about adopting Bama or Zewie, or call toll free at 1-800-432-JOIN (5646).
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