{"id":103057,"date":"2026-01-02T09:33:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-02T09:33:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/103057\/"},"modified":"2026-01-02T09:33:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-02T09:33:08","slug":"florida-manatees-flock-to-warm-springs-as-cold-temperatures-hit-state-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/103057\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida manatees flock to warm springs as cold temperatures hit state"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | article-text\">SARASOTA, Fla. (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.mysuncoast.com\/2025\/12\/31\/watch-hundreds-manatees-spending-new-years-eve-crystal-river\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.mysuncoast.com\/2025\/12\/31\/watch-hundreds-manatees-spending-new-years-eve-crystal-river\/\">WWSB<\/a>\/Gray News) &#8211; Hundreds of manatees huddled in a Florida waterway on New Year\u2019s Eve as temperatures dropped.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Video provided by the Southwest Florida Water Management District shows up to 300 manatees huddling at Three Sisters Springs in Crystal River on New Year\u2019s Eve.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The air temperature at the property was about 35 degrees. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">However, the spring-fed water in Crystal River stays relatively constant. Water temperature measured Wednesday morning was 65.8 degrees, officials said.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"figure-img img-fluid mx-auto d-block\" alt=\"Manatees huddled in Florida waters to stay warm in cold temperatures.\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1767346388_90_XTHRL56FFZEKDOXT5KXMHHUVS4.png\" width=\"980\" height=\"545\" \/>Manatees huddled in Florida waters to stay warm in cold temperatures.(Southwest Florida Water Management District)<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The property, part of which is off-limits to boaters and swimmers to protect the manatees, is co-owned by the Southwest Florida Water Management District and the city of Crystal River. It is managed by the city and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">In 2023, the Southwest Florida Water Management District completed a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.swfwmd.state.fl.us\/projects\/springs\/three-sisters-springs-canal-stabilization-project\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.swfwmd.state.fl.us\/projects\/springs\/three-sisters-springs-canal-stabilization-project\">project to stabilize<\/a> the property\u2019s shoreline, which helps reduce erosion and provides a critical manatee habitat.<\/p>\n<p class=\"copyright |\">Copyright 2026 WWSB via Gray Local Media, Inc. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SARASOTA, Fla. (WWSB\/Gray News) &#8211; Hundreds of manatees huddled in a Florida waterway on New Year\u2019s Eve as&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":103058,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[41803,13974,50712,28,30,29,22624,7896,8755,53653,40983,53652,11280,52048,2257],"class_list":["post-103057","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-crystal","tag-cute","tag-eve","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-manatees","tag-new","tag-river","tag-see","tag-sisters","tag-three","tag-to","tag-where","tag-years"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103057","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103057"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103057\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/103058"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}