On a cooler Christmas Eve, manatees crowd Blue Spring
New Year’s weather forecast to be warmer
ORANGE CITY — A whopping 277 manatees were counted in Blue Spring State Park on Christmas Eve, likely the busiest day until 2022, as temperatures are forecast to be sunny and warm until New Year’s Day.
The St. Johns River dropped to a chilly 66.4 degrees that day, prompting the warm-blooded mammals to enter the spring run, where the water temperature hovers at a comfortable 72 degrees year-round.
Nearly double that crowded into Blue Spring during a cold snap earlier this month, with researchers counting 539 manatees on Dec. 1.
“That’ s really where we hope the long-term future of the population is,” Pat Rose, executive director of Save the Manatee Club, told The News-Journal last month.
Manatees have been starving to death in Florida waters in 2021, with a record-breaking 1,075 deaths reported by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission as of mid-December.
The rash of deaths has been so devastating, particularly in the Indian River Lagoon, that wildlife officials announced they would take the unprecedented step to feed manatees in Brevard County this winter. Poor water quality has decimated the seagrasses and vegetation that manatees rely on to survive.
For now, the St. Johns River around Blue Spring has enough food to support the hundreds of manatees that rely on it. A ban on aquatic herbicides in the Blue Spring region has been in place for years.
“As far as we can tell, they are not reaching their carrying capacity and there is sufficient forage available for them to be able to make it through the winter and do well,” Rose said.
The Christmas Eve visitors included eight Save the Manatee adoptees: Moo Shoo (who had her calf by her side), Flash, Lucille, Lily, Nick, Paddy Doyle, Phyllis and Una.
For more information on how to adopt a manatee, go to savethemanatee.org or call 1-800432-JOIN (5646).
The starvation crisis, explained: Feds declare manatee deaths in Indian River Lagoon an ‘unusual mortality event’
The manatees in Blue Spring are expected to thin out this week at the weather heats up.
The seven-day forecast has highs in the upper 70s or low 80s every day for most of Central Florida.
There’s little chance of showers and most days are expected to be sunny and pleasant, according to the National Weather Service in Melbourne.