Manatees out to pasture
Electra—the youngest manatee at Homosassa Springs Wildlife Park—was found in 2000 with a crab trap wrapped around her, cutting into her skin. Her worst injuries came from a boat collision, which splintered her bones and deflated her lungs.
Today, five years after being rescued from Titusville, Electra spends most of her time in shallower areas than the other HSWP manatees, because she can’t easily pull herself up to the water’s surface to take breaths of air.
“She is the poster child for everything that could go wrong,” says Marla Ivory, a Park Services Specialist at the springs, one of the only places where captive manatees can be seen in a live, natural setting.
The manatees at the park are there for care because of serious injury, usually from an encounter with a reckless boater. Some will never have a chance to live again in the wild. For those that do, the natural setting of the park, called a soft-release site, better prepares them.
Manatees usually live solitary in the wild, but when Electra needs help crossing deep waters, the other manatees, led by the eldest, Rosie, will swim with her and lift her up. The park has other injured and elderly animals, including Florida panthers, bald eagles and even a hippopotamus, but the manatees are truly the heart of the park.
“It changes the lives of people who encounter them,” Ivory says. “They will fight for them [manatees] the rest of their lives.”