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Sunday, February 23, 2014

2014 Florida Trip – Crystal River Manatees

During the winter, manatees can be seen in many Florida locations where the water is warm and this is especially true where there are natural springs.  Since we were camped less than an hours drive from Crystal River, FL, we decided to have a look.

Crystal River National Wildlife Refuge is the last unspoiled and undeveloped habitat in Kings Bay, the headwaters of the Crystal River, and is critical for protection of the West Indian Manatee. The 30 known springs in all of Kings Bay are pumping out 6-10 million gallons of constant 72 degree Fahrenheit water per day to provide essential warm water refuge for the manatees that congregate there in the winter months.  This is a look upstream and downstream from the bridge we were on.



During the winter months 2-3 hundred Manatees migrate to this area and we saw ours from just a small stream from the Kings Bay Rd bridge (red arrow) as shown on this Google Earth shot.


There are some places where you can swim with them, but here I think it was out-of-the-water manatee viewing only, so there were plenty of Kayakers.






Per Wikipedia, Manatees (Sea Cows) can measure 13 feet long, weigh 1300 pounds, and live for 60 years - an adult eats about 10% of it's body weight each day.  This guy appears to have lots of algae growing on his/ her back.



It was great seeing them so close and especially the mom’s with little ones.

Photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Larry

2/10/14 event date

13 comments:

  1. What a fun experience and your pictures are great. I had no idea manatees could live to be sixty. That's a lot of dodging boats :)
    Sam

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  2. I've only been to one manatee sanctuary in Florida, but would love to experience them close-up as you did! Such gentle giant creatures! I'm so glad that I found your comments in my spam box to move them to the right place on my blog . . . thank you for the heads up! This is such a nice new template too, Larry!

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  3. What a lovely day and how fun to get so close to these amazing creatures. They seem very comfortable coming up close to the kayakers.

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  4. Great photos of those manatees Larry. I'm so glad to know there's a refuge for them, I remember being horrified watching a report where boat propellers were chopping them up. Such gentle and slow creatures they can't get out of the way.

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  5. Very nice shots of the manatees Larry. If you are ever up in the Blue Springs State Park, FL area (near Orange City, FL) you'll be able to see them up-close-and-personal as well.

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  6. You got such great shots of the manatees. The little ones sticking close to Mom are wonderful.

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  7. Your photos are terrific. When we had our home on the bay in Key Largo, manatees used to swim up to our dock during the winter. We would take the garden hose out to the dock and let them drink fresh water which they love.

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  8. Hi There, This post brought back memories. When I lived in Jacksonville (late '70s-early '80s) we had a friend who would take us out on their boat on the St. John's River. We used to see lots of Manitees.... Neat, huh?
    Hugs,
    Betsy

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  9. What a great experience that must have been! Even though, I'm sure, swimming with them is exciting, this had to be an incredible site on it's own.

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  10. Awesome! I've never seen a manatee before.

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  11. Manatees are one of those creatures that look like a 5 year old designed it, aren't they? I saw them in Jacksonville a long time back, on the St. John's River. They call them "sea cows", too, although I think they're a freshwater critter.

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  12. Those manatees are fantastic.You sure got close. Sometimes I think I eat 10 percent of my body weight.

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  13. Larry, Nice manatee photos! Better than ours... We watched a couple of Manatees in the small harbor at the Deering Estate south of Miami. The water just wasn't clear enough for great photos, but it was still cool seeing them. Take Care, Big Daddy Dave

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