Another Out-of-Place Manatee
Posted by: Loren Coleman on January 4th, 2007
Tennessee’s Manatee
Last August 2006, an out-of-place manatee showed up in the Hudson Valley, New York (remember Tappie?).
Then in October, one apparently swam up the Mississippi River to a harbor near Memphis, Tennessee. The Memphis manatee was found dead in December in a lake in the State of Mississippi. On January 4, 2007, the news was announced that the reason for the death of the Memphis manatee may never be known, as not enough tissue samples could be collected to discover the cause.
Perhaps the warm weather is disorienting manatees, as well as the blossoms coming out in New York City or people in shorts in Maine? Now comes along a January 2007 record of another out-of-place manatee.
On January 4, 2007, the Associated Press ran a story about a lost manatee rescued near Corpus Christi, Texas.
The wayward manatee was being taken care of at the Texas State Aquarium’s Sea Lab, after being found near a clean warmer water outflow at a Citgo refinery. Wildlife officials said that it is the first time a manatee has been captured off the coast of Texas versus them being routinely found off Mexico and Florida.
Texas wildlife authorities noted that manatees, while rare off the Texas coast, have begun being spotted during the recent decade’s warmer weather. Two to four manatee sightings a year have occurred off the Coastal Bend waters durng the past six years.
An attempt will be made to transport the Texas-found manatee to Florida, after it regains its health.
About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct).
Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015.
Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.
I believe that the historic range of the West Indian manatee includes the Texas coast and most of the Caribbean coasts of Central America. Could it be “out of place” if it is only returning to its former range?
Also, one wonders what dispersal patterns of wildlife and cryptids are being rearranged by global warming. We are well aware of creatures being threatened by climate change, i.e. polar bears, but what creatures are thriving or migrating to larger ranges because of the rapid changes in environmental conditions? ( Aside from fire ants and other pests 🙂 )
The manatee may be forced to move on from the growing dead zones in the Southern river estuaries, caused by high water temperatures and pollution. In thirty years manatees maybe swimming in the warm waters washing over flooded Wall Street, and Sasquatch populations explode on Alaska’s balmy and heavily forested North Slope.
All these animals out of place remind me of the Matawan lake incident…
Back in 1996, one swam up the Houston Ship Channel and was seen for awhile in Buffalo Bayou in downtown Houston. There was media coverage of it, and people would go down to the park to throw lettuce to it so it would have something to eat. People would bring their kids and got a big kick out of watching it eat. I don’t remember if it was actually rescued or if it wandered back out to Galveston Bay on it’s own.
Matawan Lake incident? I know of a Matawan Creek incident (The 1916 NJ bull shark attacks that inspired Benchley to write Jaws), but not of what you might speak. Elaborate, please…
Manatees are very intelligent mammals. Being on par with other higher mammals like ourselves (humans) they have simply discovered the benefits of migrating seasonally between NY and Florida like everyone else! Winters in Miami, summers in NY. Very common place 😉
The Texas manatees are obviously getting stopped by the State troopers like every one else that passes through that State.