{"id":303607,"date":"2026-06-11T06:35:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-11T06:35:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/303607\/"},"modified":"2026-06-11T06:35:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-11T06:35:11","slug":"baby-manatee-found-with-shark-bite-boat-strike-wounds-near-st-pete-dock","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/303607\/","title":{"rendered":"Baby manatee found with shark bite, boat strike wounds near St. Pete dock"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">A baby manatee is in critical condition after he was found floating in St. Pete waters with shark bite wounds on his tail.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wtsp.com\/article\/news\/regional\/florida\/florida-restricts-giant-manta-ray-captures-bans-international-exports\/67-5a01751e-ee04-482b-b5da-beb3b4ab80d0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"elm:link;elmt:article_link;slk:Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission&quot;}\" class=\"link \">Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission<\/a> (FWC) responded last week to a call about a small, distressed manatee floating next to a dock at Eckerd College.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Rescue crews discovered that the calf had wounds from a recent watercraft interaction, several shark bite wounds on his tail and was underweight.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">With assistance from Eckerd College rescue teams, the calf was transported to ZooTampa&#8217;s manatee hospital for further treatment.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">ZooTampa told 10 Tampa Bay News that the manatee was 195 pounds at the time of his rescue and is estimated to be less than a year old.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;He remains in critical condition and is on daily tube feedings,&#8221; a spokesperson for the zoo said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">If you see an injured, distressed or abandoned manatee calf, you&#8217;re asked to call the FWC Wildlife Alert Hotline at 888-404-3922.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;Early rescue efforts may save a manatee\u2019s life!&#8221; the FWC wrote.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A baby manatee is in critical condition after he was found floating in St. Pete waters with shark&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":303608,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[2680,1774,8659,4747,4134,127358,77257,202,204,203,199,201,200,23643],"class_list":["post-303607","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-critical-condition","tag-eckerd-college","tag-florida-fish-and-wildlife","tag-fwc","tag-manatee","tag-manatee-hospital","tag-shark-bite","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news","tag-tampa-bay-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303607","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=303607"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303607\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/303608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=303607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=303607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=303607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}