{"id":404456,"date":"2026-09-19T09:34:29","date_gmt":"2026-09-19T09:34:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/404456\/"},"modified":"2026-09-19T09:34:29","modified_gmt":"2026-09-19T09:34:29","slug":"manatee-released-at-eckerd-college-after-rehabilitation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/404456\/","title":{"rendered":"Manatee released at Eckerd College after rehabilitation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Florida wildlife officials say the manatee, named Cascade, was rescued in May after it was apparently hit by a boat.<\/p>\n<p>ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. \u2014 A rescued manatee swam back into the wild Thursday after a successful summer-long rehabilitation.<\/p>\n<p>The manatee, named Cascade, was released at the Eckerd College Waterfront at 1 p.m. ZooTampa, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission Marine Mammal Pathobiology Lab, and Eckerd College Search and Rescue teamed up for the release.<\/p>\n<p>Eckerd College tells 10 Tampa Bay News the adult male manatee was found May 13 near Treasure Island. Rescuers say Cascade was suffering from &#8220;boat-related injuries.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>FWC and a team from Eckerd took the injured sea cow to ZooTampa for rehab. Four months later, they say his condition is good enough to return to the wild.<\/p>\n<p>The team used a tarp to move the manatee from a transport truck down the Eckerd College boat ramp. They say this was the easiest way to move the animal since adult manatees can weigh more than 1,200 pounds.<\/p>\n<p>            <img class=\"photo__main\" loading=\"eager\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/e405d9f6-b91a-49bc-8430-aa7215b9f109_1140x641.jpg\"   alt=\"\"\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Florida wildlife officials say the manatee, named Cascade, was rescued in May after it was apparently hit by&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":404457,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":["post-404456","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\/404456","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=404456"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404456\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/404457"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=404456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=404456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=404456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}