Chessie the traveling manatee blew his own cover after seven unbound months when the nearly 1,500-pound escape artist unwittingly sent his whereabouts to wildlife officials.
The wily manatee, named for the Chesapeake Bay where it was rescued in 1994, lost a GPS tracker in June – its fourth in its estimated 35 years.
But he still wore the attached belt, which has a limited-range acoustic transmitter.
As Chessie swam past a surveillance device in water near Port Everglades on Jan. 25, it texted an executive at the Clearwater Marine Research Institute.
“We raced there and luckily he just wanted to hang out and sleep all day and that made it easier,” said Amanda Mathieu, a research associate at the institute who was able to retag Chessie with a GPS tracker. “He’s a really cool manatee that needs to be tagged for his experience and significant history, which is rare for wild manatees.”
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A star of children’s books for his travels as far away as Rhode Island, Chessie’s Travels are of particular interest.
His disappearance on June 27, which researchers believe was aided by a strange alligator chewing on his tracker, happened less than two months after he was released at Anchorage Park in North Palm Beach.
Chessie had previously been recovering at SeaWorld Orlando, where he was brought by Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officials after a February 5 rescue in Riviera Beach. Chessie was found floating on his side – an obvious sign of distress in manatees. He was malnourished and suffering from pneumonia.
An unusual manatee death event was declared in March after hundreds were found starving to death. Most of the deaths have occurred in the Indian River Lagoon, where algal blooms and pollution have contributed to a large-scale die-off of seagrass – a main food source for manatees.
FWC embarked on an unprecedented effort this winter to stave off starvation by feeding romaine lettuce to manatees in areas where they congregate for winter warmth, such as the United States. For example, at Florida Power & Light’s clean energy facility on the Indian River Lagoon.
Mathieu said Chessie appears healthy and has no recent evidence of him being sliced by boat propellers, although his multitude of scars from the past is one way researchers have repeatedly identified him.
FWC Assistant General Manager Thomas Eason said he was less concerned about manatees in South Florida during a December announcement in Riviera Beach about the feeding effort. No feeding is planned for Lake Worth Lagoon or Port Everglades, where manatees gather in cold weather to loll in the warm water drains of FPL facilities.
“From what we’re seeing and what our researchers and managers are saying, the seagrass die-off isn’t nearly as intense down here,” Eason said.
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As of February 4 of this year, 164 manatees have died, according to FWC records. That’s higher than the five-year average of 105, but lower than last year’s figure of 208 for the same period.
Of this year’s deaths, only four were found in Palm Beach County. All were listed as natural deaths.
Mathieu hopes Chessie’s fifth tracking device will remain intact long enough to give researchers an idea of its movements this winter.
“This data is valuable in helping us understand how manatees respond to habitat loss,” she said. “We can see where he’s going, which can give us a better justification for habitat protection.”
kmiller@pbpost.com
@Kmillerweather
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