Manatee Park

Wednesday December 12th

Situated on Palm Beach Boulevard and adjacent to Florida Power and Lights Ft Myers Power Plant is Manatee Park.

Visitors can observe the many West Indian Manatees that will congregate in the power plants discharge channel in the colder days of winter.

The Manatees will gather here to take advantage of the heated waters being discharged from the power plant to the Orange River, when the water temp in the Gulf gets too cold for them. Senior Program Specialist, Laure Carr recently explained to me, that because the manatee lacks the fatty layers we see in other aquatic mammals, they are very sensitive to the cold.

The U.S. Fish and Wild life Service has recently changed their status from Endangered to Threatened as their populations in Florida have improved.

Lots of Scares From Boat Strikes

Today we were able to observe dozens of Manatees in the viewing section at the park and could hear their vocalization through a hydrophone placed in the water. Many of the manatees seen today are scared from boat strikes.  Some can also show up encrusted with barnacles. Laure Carr explained that after a couple of weeks the barnacles fall away because of the fresh water environment.

Florida Power & Light's Ft Myers power plant produces the warm water 

attractive to the West Indies Manatees when the ambient temps get too chilly