A manatee was spotted in the Shark River in Belmar on Sunday.<\/p>\n
The mammal was seen by local photographer Kate Watt, who took a quick video as it slowly swam through the water.<\/p>\n
Other locals saw the animal over the weekend, according to multiple reports.<\/p>\n
The Marine Mammal Stranding Center said Tuesday on its Facebook page that they have been monitoring the manatee.<\/p>\n
The center urged anyone who sees it to keep their distance and report it by using the center\u2019s 24-Hour Stranding Hotline at 609-266-0538.<\/p>\n
Manatees have been spotted<\/a> as far north as New England in summer<\/a> months, but in the winter they typically congregate in Florida. Manatees in waters close to New Jersey are rare. <\/p>\n In 2020, one was found dead on a beach in Middle Township.<\/p>\n In October 2009, a manatee later named Ilya was pulled from a creek at a Linden oil refinery<\/a>. A massive rescue effort<\/a> involving dozens of people, including 20 workers from the refinery, two boats, a dive team and a special crane was launched to pull Ilya from the waters.<\/p>\n Ilya was taken to the Marine Mammal Stranding Center in Brigantine for a few days of rehabilitation and evaluation before the manatee was treated to a flight to the warmer waters of Florida<\/a> aboard a Coast Guard C-130 transport plane.<\/p>\n Ilya died in 2018 after being struck by a boat off the Florida coast.<\/p>\n Please consider supporting NJ.com<\/a> with a voluntary subscription.<\/p>\n Chris Sheldon<\/a> may be reached at csheldon@njadvancemedia.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. By using this site, you consent to our User Agreement<\/a> and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and\/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our Privacy Policy.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A manatee was spotted in the Shark River in Belmar on Sunday. The mammal was seen by local…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":146038,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[79,201],"class_list":{"0":"post-146037","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-science","9":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=146037"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146037\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/146038"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=146037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=146037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=146037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}