Squeaky, Rocket & Annie –
Club’s Adoption Program Adds New Manatees
For further information, contact:
For Immediate Release: April 12, 2012
Note: High resolution jpeg images of new manatee adoptees at Blue Spring are available upon request.
An occasional gentle splish-splash; grey, graceful shapes playfully twirl and dive in warm waters – welcome the manatee trio of Squeaky, Rocket & Annie, to Save the Manatee Club’s Adopt-A-Manatee® program at Blue Spring State Park in Orange City, Florida!
There are now 24 manatee adoptees to choose from at Blue Spring, and another 13 total from the Club’s adoption program on the East coast; at Ellie Schiller Homosassa Springs Wildlife State Park; in the Tampa Bay area; and in Alabama. Save the Manatee Club, a Florida-based international nonprofit manatee conservation organization, was founded 31 years ago by singer/songwriter Jimmy Buffett and former Florida Governor and U.S. Senator Bob Graham to help protect the state’s endangered marine mammals. Funds from the adoption program help with the Club’s extensive manatee and habitat conservation work.
The new manatees up for adoption are winter visitors to Blue Spring where the water naturally maintains a year-round temperature of 72 º F and is a popular winter refuge for manatees. Wayne Hartley, Save the Manatee Club’s Manatee Specialist, tracks and documents all the Blue Spring manatees. The data compiled by Hartley, a former Park Ranger and Park Services Specialist at Blue Spring, is one of the longest running manatee research projects in the state of Florida.
Squeaky, a female manatee, is currently the youngest manatee in the Club’s adoption program at just nine months old. Squeaky was born to mother Amber in the spring run on June 13, 2011. It is believed that Squeaky is Amber’s first calf. After giving birth to Squeaky last summer, Amber returned to Blue Spring this past winter with her young calf in tow, much to the delight of the park visitors.
Annie is an adult female who was rescued as an orphan in August 2005 from the Halifax River, near Port Orange, Florida. Annie was too young to be on her own, so after her rescue, she was taken to SeaWorld of Florida, and it was there that she befriended Rocket.
Rocket is a male manatee, who was rescued as an orphaned calf in 2006 at Blue Spring State Park. He was aptly named “Rocket” because of his proclivity to “rocket” around the tank during his rehabilitation. Rocket and Annie shared the same tank at SeaWorld. When they were released two years later at about four years of age, they remained together for well over a year, which is unusual outside of mother and calf pairs, as manatees are typically somewhat solitary animals.
Those who adopt Squeaky, Annie, or Rocket will receive a full-color photo, biography, and adoption certificate, as well as a membership handbook and subscription to The Manatee Zone, the Club’s newsletter featuring updates on the adopted manatees when they are sighted, and Paddle Tales, the bi-monthly e-newsletter.
For more information about adopting the new manatees or others in the program, visit the Club’s website or call toll free at 1-800-432-JOIN (5646).
Earlier this year, Save the Manatee Club launched live manatee webcams at Blue Spring State Park, making it possible to see Squeaky, Rocket, Annie, and all the other manatees in real time during the winter months. Throughout other months of the year, the public can watch recorded video of manatees and live underwater and above-water scenes of Florida wildlife and habitat within the spring run and adjacent St. Johns River. Click here to access the webcams.
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