Rescued manatees Kangaroo and Joey are back in home waters in the Florida Keys
Amid nationwide unrest and the COVID-19 pandemic, there remains happy news.
In the Florida Keys on Wednesday, a manatee mother and calf were returned home six months after they were removed from the water so the older mammal could be treated and rehabilitated at the Miami Seaquarium for severe injuries to both of her pectoral flippers.
The culprit? A common one. Discarded monofilament fishing line, combined with netting.
The debris was so entangled around one of her flippers that it ended up breaking her radius and ulna bones, said Mary Stella of the Dolphin Research Center on Grassy Key.
Dr. Maya Rodriguez, the Seaquarium’s veterinarian, said manatees and humans have the same bone structure.
The DRC was one of several South Florida licensed marine mammal rescue organizations, including the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, that helped remove the manatees — whom they named Kangaroo and Joey — from a marina in Key Largo on Feb. 26.
Together, the groups not only participate in marine mammal rescues and releases, but are also part of a network that responds to larger events like whale and dolphin strandings.
“It’s a village,” said Arthur Cooper, a marine mammal responder from Dolphins Plus in Key Largo, which is part of the network.
Once Kangaroo was taken to the Seaquarium, she had to endure several surgeries to remove the debris from her flippers, said Julie Heyde, animal care supervisor at the facility.
“Once we got all that fishing line out, she was able to heal those bones,” Heyde said.
Significant scarring does remain, unfortunately.
“It’s not going to look pretty. She does still have scar tissue around the area,” Heyde said. “But at least we got all the stuff out of there.”
The extent of the damage caused by the littered fishing gear shows the importance of cleaning up after yourself on the water, Heyde said.
“If you’re doing some fishing, clean up what you’re bringing out on your boat,” she said.
Despite his mom’s injuries, there was nothing wrong with Joey. But because he’s still dependent on his mother for milk, he had to come to the Virginia Key Seaquarium with her, Heyde said.
Heyde said Joey, who weighs about 500 pounds, is probably around 2 years old, which is about the time manatees in South Florida start becoming less dependent on their mothers for food.
At 1,000 pounds, Kangaroo is estimated to be around 10 years old, Heyde said.
The mammals were driven to the Keys in the back of a truck from the Seaquarium and taken to a boat ramp at John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park on the ocean side of U.S. 1 in Key Largo. They were found in February nearby in the marina of the Pilot House restaurant at mile marker 100, and Rodriguez said it wouldn’t take long for Kangaroo to recognize where she was once reintroduced to her home surroundings.
After Seaquarium staff and volunteers did the heavy lifting of taking them out of the truck, they measured and prepared them for their return to the water. They had already been microchipped so scientists can track them in the wild.
They were also marked with yellow to show spots on their body that had been hit by boats. Although Kangaroo and Joey had not been seriously injured by boats, they each had some marks indicating previous boat strikes. According to Rodriguez, this is something the two share with 90 percent of the state’s manatee population.
Then, about a dozen people lifted the animals on blue tarps and slowly walked down the ramp. Once in the water, both manatees slowly swam off into the mangrove-lined waters of Pennekamp Park.
“This is the really happy part of these efforts,” Stella said.
This story was originally published July 15, 2020 at 7:11 PM.
