ST. PETERSBURG, FL – A listless baby manatee with multiple watercraft and shark attack wounds was found floating next to a dock at Eckerd College on Thursday and rescued, the college wrote in a social media post. <\/p>\n
Eckerd staff and watersports camp student instructors called the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission after spotting the manatee. <\/p>\n
FWC Officer Andy Garrett, a 1999 graduate of Eckerd, responded to the waterfront with his crew, who confirmed the 6-foot-long male manatee was in distress and needed rescuing, the college said. <\/p>\n
About 2-years-old, the manatee was lethargic, underweight, and had a series of watercraft wounds across his back, as well as several shark wounds on his tail and peduncle, the area that connects his tail to his body. <\/p>\n
FWC staff, students, and Eckerd College Search and Rescue team members used a hoop net to capture the ailing manatee and pull him onto the dock. <\/p>\n
The rescued manatee is being cared for at ZooTampa at Lowry Park. (Ryan Dilkey\/Eckerd College) <\/p>\n
Once on a stretcher, the FWC team transferred him to a foam pad at the top of the boat ramp, and kept him wet, shaded, and comfortable until the ZooTampa at Lowry Park transport team arrived. <\/p>\n
When ZooTampa staff arrived, they loaded him into their specialized box truck to bring him to their manatee critical care facility. <\/p>\n
After arriving at the zoo, he was assessed by the medical team and will remain there for rehabilitation. <\/p>\n
See Also: <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. PETERSBURG, FL – A listless baby manatee with multiple watercraft and shark attack wounds was found floating…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":298000,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":["post-297999","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297999","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=297999"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297999\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/298000"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=297999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=297999"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=297999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}