{"id":167176,"date":"2026-02-24T17:40:58","date_gmt":"2026-02-24T17:40:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/167176\/"},"modified":"2026-02-24T17:40:58","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T17:40:58","slug":"injured-manatee-rescued-from-venice-waterway-transported-to-zootampa-for-rehabilitation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/167176\/","title":{"rendered":"Injured manatee rescued from Venice waterway, transported to ZooTampa for rehabilitation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | article-text\">VENICE, Fla. (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.mysuncoast.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.mysuncoast.com\/\">WWSB<\/a>) &#8211; Marine units from the Venice Police Department and the Sarasota County Sheriff\u2019s Office responded over the weekend to a report of a manatee in distress in the Hatchett Creek area.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Officers located an injured manatee showing signs of cold stress lesions and visible scarring along its tail, according to the Venice Police Department.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission biologists were notified and responded to assist, along with staff from Mote Marine Laboratory &amp; Aquarium. With support from Sea Tow Venice, crews removed the manatee from the water.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.mysuncoast.com\/2026\/02\/10\/mote-marine-laboratory-rescues-cold-stressed-manatees-sea-turtles\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.mysuncoast.com\/2026\/02\/10\/mote-marine-laboratory-rescues-cold-stressed-manatees-sea-turtles\/\">Mote Marine Laboratory rescues cold-stressed manatees and sea turtles<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Mote Marine then transported the animal to ZooTampa at Lowry Park for specialized rehabilitation and recovery.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Officials urged the public to report marine animals that appear injured, distressed, entangled or dead. The following resources are available:<\/p>\n<p>FWC Wildlife Alert Hotline (24\/7): 888-404-FWCC (3922) \u2014 for manatees, dolphins, whales and sea turtles statewide.Mote Marine Stranding Investigations Program (Sarasota and Manatee counties): 888-345-2335 \u2014 for sick, injured or dead dolphins, whales and sea turtles.<\/p>\n<p class=\"copyright |\">Copyright 2026 WWSB. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"VENICE, Fla. (WWSB) &#8211; Marine units from the Venice Police Department and the Sarasota County Sheriff\u2019s Office responded&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":167177,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[79456,79459,79455,79458,135,137,136,79457],"class_list":["post-167176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-cold-stress-manatee","tag-fwc-wildlife-alert-hotline","tag-manatee-rescue-venice-florida","tag-mote-marine-laboratory-manatee","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news","tag-zootampa-manatee-rehabilitation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167176","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=167176"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167176\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/167177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=167176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=167176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=167176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}