DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Tailgate Forum Oh the Hugh Manatee. Memphis Manatee dies

Manatee's corpse recovered; goes to zoo for analysis


By Tom Charlier

December 13, 2006

The manatee found dead in McKellar Lake this week was recovered and sent to the Memphis Zoo on Tuesday for a postmortem and other analyses, officials said.

Officials collected the sea cow from the lake bank and placed it in a boat, from which the animal was transferred to a truck, said Lt. Ed Vidulich of the Memphis Police Department's Harbor Patrol.

At the zoo, the manatee will undergo a necropsy to determine a cause of death, with tissue samples and photos taken for genetic analyses and identification purposes.

Andy Kouba, curator of conservation and research for the zoo, confirmed that the manatee appeared extremely underweight.

"It looks much smaller than a normal, healthy manatee would," he said.

Kouba said he didn't know how long it might take to determine the cause of death.

The manatee corpse was discovered Monday morning, more than six weeks after the animal disappeared from Wolf River Harbor -- more than 10 miles upriver from McKellar Lake -- where wildlife officials had mobilized for a rescue.

The manatee, which showed up the weekend of Oct. 21-22, was the first known to have traveled 735 miles up the Mississippi River to Memphis from the Gulf of Mexico.

Officials had wanted to rescue the animal because water temperatures were below the 66-degree minimum manatees generally require to remain healthy.

-- Tom Charlier: 529-2572

Copyright 2006 - commercialappeal.com is an E.W. Scripps Company website. Other E.W. Scripps sites:

<img src="/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" /> Poor old Hugh.

You hate to see that happen to helpless sea cows. <img src="/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />

Poor thing. <img src="/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />

I think Prov. beat it to death with a club <img src="/images/graemlins/shocked.gif" alt="" />

Silly Cows, when will they ever learn. <img src="/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />

"helpless" being the operative word.... <img src="/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />

You guys need some new material. The word dull comes to mind anymore. <img src="/images/graemlins/plthumbsdown.gif" alt="" />

Poor sea cow...



Shouldn't the officials have moved the manatee BEFORE the temps dropped below the healthy minimum?

Well if you do a quick timeline, the Manatee was found this week and disappeared 6 weeks ago.. that means it disappeared around, October 30... and it showed up in the harbor on Oct 21 or 22... which means it was in the harbor for more than a week ... when they could have pulled it out. Surely this drop in water temperature is something that happens roughly the same time every year right? So yea, it would seem they had a one or two week window of opportunity to get it out of there...

They tried to catch him, but he swam away. They couldn't find him. This was a team from Sea World in Orlando who came up to catch him.

I wish I could find the picture of him. Big dead bloated pink sea cow!

[img] http://mas.scripps.com/MCA/2006/12/11/12manatee_o.jpg [/img]