Stingrays
When I landed in Florida, the Tampa area was just recovering from a cold snap of around 50 degrees Fahrenheit. Of course, that was about 70 degrees more than I was leaving in Maine, but it was uncharacteristically cold Florida. Fortunately, it warmed up while I was visiting, but not before I could make it to see the manatees huddling in Tampa Bay.
The first place I went to in Florida was the Tampa Bay Manatee Visiting Center. Like me, manatees have a low tolerance for cold water. When the temperature gets below 68 degrees Fahrenheit, manatees swim closer to shore, soaking up the warmth produced by nearby factories like the Big Bend Power Station at the viewing center. From the viewing deck I could see many gray blobs that occasionally poked their heads up to reveal themselves as manatees. Despite numerous jokes about manatees being ugly, I thought they were adorable. In different parts of the world they were (and still are) often mistaken for mermaids. So if you ever wondered what a mermaid might look like, they look like giant, naked, ocean dogs.
Manatees (left & right)
Maybe people aren't typically looking at the face end of a manatee when they mistake it for a mermaid, but like mermaids and sirens, manatees have a rough history with sailors. Looking like giant rocks under the surface, all of the manatees had scars on their backs and tails--some, like the one I photographed, had damaged tails--all caused by boats. In fact, the biggest threat to their survival is humans. Over time, these scars can be used to identify certain manatees, and the visiting center had an area designated for some of the older manatees who were frequent visitors. I couldn't personally identify any, but some of the manatees listed were twice as old as me, and had apparently been coming to the canal for a long time.
Inside the visiting center were pieces of manatee skeletons. There weren't a lot of bones, but I could squat down to look through the glass at the bones that formed a hand bigger than the size of my face. Like whales and other aquatic mammals, manatees have hand-shaped skeletons underneath their big flippers. Manatees, even the cubs, are huge. They can grow up to 1,200 pounds and be 10 feet long. On top of that, they're herbivores, who eat 15% of their body weight everyday. That's 180 pounds of plants eaten every single day.
Manatees (left & right)
As if giant, grass guzzling manatees weren't enough of an attraction, the viewing center also had a stingray tank. The line was long and the viewing time was short, but I managed to squeeze in long enough to visit the stingrays. Like the patient, friendly animals they are, they spent most of the time entertaining the young kids, who were sticking their hands into the water to pet them. Unfortunately, I never got the chance to pet them before being ushered out for the stingrays' break time.
The stingrays were a recent addition to the viewing center. They originally came from Florida's coast, before ending up in a touch tank in Tropicana Field, where they entertained the Tampa Bay Rays' fans. Since baseball is a summer gig, they came to the viewing center to help celebrate the center's 30th anniversary. It seemed that the stingrays were about as well-traveled as me, and I was lucky that our travels intersected, so I could see them.
Stingrays (left & right)
