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| A Manatee in the Hudson? |
August 03, 2006
Aquatic wildlife specialists are asking boaters, fishermen, and especially kayakers to be on the lookout for a manatee spotted last Saturday headed north in the Hudson river off Manhattan.
Kim Durhman, the Rescue Program director of the Riverhead Foundation for Marine Research and Preservation, issued an alert for the manatee, who she says may be hard to spot. " The manatee blends in with the water," she says, "usually you can only see the animal's muzzle above the water line." Manatees are herbivores, feeding off of river vegetation, and are more apt to be found around the shoreline or old pilings, she said.
The manatee usually doesn't migrate further north than Virginia and North Carolina, but Durham says that at least one manatee has been tracked all the way to Rhode Island and south again. Manatees can tolerate water temperature as low as 65 degrees. The Hudson River water at Beacon was 79.5 degrees in late July.
If you or anyone you know thinks you've seen a manatee in the Hudson, you can call the Riverhead Foundation Hotline at 631-369-9829. The rescuers at the Foundation will send a team to photograph and document the sighting.
The "Save the Manatee" website describes the physical appearance of the endangered manatee: "West Indian manatees are large, gray aquatic mammals with bodies that taper to a flat, paddle-shaped tail. They have two forelimbs, called flippers, with three to four nails. Their head and face are wrinkled with whiskers on the snout. The manatee's closest land relatives are the elephant and the hyrax, a small, gopher-sized mammal. Manatees are believed to have evolved from a wading, plant-eating animal.
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