Emaciated manatee found in Bahamas

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - Officials in the Bahamas are trying to figure out how to save an emaciated Florida manatee found stranded in its waters this week.

But the creature, nicknamed "Crusoe" in honor of the British adventurer, has proven elusive. Scientists fear there is not enough food in Rum Cay for it to survive.

Florida officials confirmed they had taken the manatee's picture in 1980 as part of a program to protect the endangered species. They had noted its disfigured tail—a third of it missing from a long-ago boat accident.

Florida manatees tend to congregate around the state in the winter. Although a couple have been found in Rhode Island and Texas in the summer, experts say it's rare for them to travel this far.

Rum Cay is more than 370 miles southeast of Florida's southern tip.

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When the Vernons got a phone call about a manatee from Florida found stranded in the Bahamas this week, they shook their heads.

The lumbering marine mammal could not have traveled that far, thought Dan Vernon, a retired veterinarian from Florida who has a vacation home in the Bahamas.

But he and his wife drove to the marina at the behest of curious onlookers. In the water lounged an emaciated Florida manatee, a third of its tail missing from a long-ago boat accident.

"We thought it was dead at first," Donna Vernon, of Gainesville, Florida, said Saturday by telephone. "She was very still, very quiet."

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Bahamian officials are now trying to figure out how to save it.

"It is very, very thin," he said. "Something needs to be done to help her nutritionally pretty soon."

Officials in Florida confirmed they had taken its picture back in 1980 as part of a program to protect the endangered species. They had noted its disfigured tail, Manire said.

Florida manatees tend to congregate around that state in the winter. Although a couple have been found in Rhode Island and Texas in the summer, it is rare for them to travel that far, according to the Florida-based Save a Manatee organization.

Rum Cay is more than 373 miles (600 kilometers) southeast of Florida's southern tip.

One manatee has even been found living in Cuba, said Mike Walsh, former head veterinarian at Sea World who ran a manatee rescue program.

"It is not unheard of," he said. "It is something that has been seen over time."

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If there is an adequate food supply, the manatees can survive in their new surroundings, said Walsh, who is now associate director of University of Florida's Aquatic Animal Health Program.

But scientists fear there is not enough food in Rum Cay for it to survive. Manatees can eat about 10 to 15 percent of their weight a day.

"Crusoe" could be transported back to Florida via helicopter or aboard a boat, Manire said.

An official with the Bahamas' Marine Resources Department, who declined to be named because he was not authorized to comment, said the manatee likely will not be sent back immediately because of its poor health. It will likely rehabilitated in the Bahamas until it gets stronger.