October 25, 2006

Memphis Manatee

Tennessee Manatee

Remember the Hudson River, New York sightings of a manatee named Tappie?

Well, incredibly, near Memphis, the above pictured manatee has appeared in the city’s Mud Island Harbor.

For more than four hours Monday [October 23, 2006], Memphis Police Harbor Patrol and officials with the Tennessee State Wildlife Resources Agency tracked the 6- to 8-foot-long, 1,000-pound mammal after they received a call about a strange creature in the harbor.

"These old fishermen spotted it two days ago and called the zoo to report that they had seen a prehistoric animal, a Loch Ness monster or something," said Lt. Ed Vidulich with the Memphis Police Harbor Patrol. "When we got the call about it Monday I said it couldn’t be a manatee — a body maybe, but not a manatee."

But a manatee, indeed, it was.

Memphis Manatee Slideshow

Loren Coleman 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.

Filed under Breaking News, Cryptotourism, CryptoZoo News, Cryptozoology