Nearly 1K manatees spotted in record-breaking swim at Florida park

A record number of manatees was spotted basking in a shallow Florida waterway over the weekend — marking a promising turn for the threatened species.

Officials counted 932 sea cows swimming Sunday in the spot at Blue Spring State Park, a warm refuge for the mammals located 30 miles north of Orlando.

The number broke the park’s previous record of 736 manatees seen at the spot in a single day, which was this past New Year’s Day, park officials announced.

Exhilarating photos of the record-breaking morning show featured dozens of manatees enjoying crystal-clear waters surrounded by lush foliage from the sanctuary park.

An underwater live-stream camera notched dozens of others who were hiding beneath the surface, but high winds made it tricky — and potentially impossible — to count every single manatee swimming in the waterway.

“There is a very good chance that many more were in, huddled together so we were unable to identify them,” the Save the Manatee Club said.

The record was logged on what officials described as the “coldest morning of the season yet.” The nearby St. John’s River temperature was a relatively chilly 58.8 degrees, driving the nearly 1,000 manatees to seek warmth in the park waters, which run at a constant 72 degrees all year round.

Sea cows congregate in the shallow waters from mid-November to March because they cannot tolerate water temperatures colder than 68 degrees for long periods.

The marine mammals only have about an inch of fat and are prone to cold stress syndrome, which is “comparable to hypothermia, pneumonia or frostbite in humans and can make them very sick,” according to Blue Spring State Park.

Manatees, considered a threatened species, have slowly been recovering in numbers.

More than 550 manatees died in Florida in 2023 thanks to watercraft accidents, disease and starvation. But that was a decrease from the 1,027 that died in 2021, state Fish and Wildlife data show.

Their numbers are now so hopeful that wildlife officials suspended in December a two-year experimental feeding program, after finding that the seagrass which manatees rely on had started to recover in key winter foraging areas on the east coast and that there appeared to be fewer manatees in poor physical condition going into the stressful colder months.

The starvation problem has been traced to nitrogen, phosphorus and sewage pollution from agriculture, urban runoff and other sources that trigger algae blooms, which in turn kill off the seagrass that manatees and other sea creatures rely upon.

The Florida manatee overall population is estimated at between 8,350 and 11,730 animals.

With Post wires