KEY LARGO, FLA. (WSVN) - Danger, an orphaned manatee calf, is headed to Orlando for rehabilitation after being rescued by Good Samaritans in the Florida Keys.
A Florida Wildlife Conservation Commission Officer poured water on an orphaned manatee calf after it was rescued from Largo Sound in Key Largo on Tuesday.
Two good Samaritans, Alex and Shannon Constantinides were on a trip to the flats off Key Largo that morning to target smaller backcountry fish.
“Haven’t ever encountered an animal in distress like that before,” Alex said.
It began as they made their way through South Creek, when they saw what they believed to be a struggling grouper in the No Wake Zone.
“At first I thought it was maybe a grouper or something, and it was struggling. It looked small, and it didn’t even register as a manatee at first,” Shannon said.
Upon closer inspection, they were met with the sight of a manatee calf floating in the middle of the ocean.
“Oh, my gosh, it’s a baby manatee,” Shannon said.
The couple believed the manatee wouldn’t survive if they didn’t help.
“In these conditions and in that current, that manatee wouldn’t have survived much longer,” Alex said.
Even in better water conditions, the manatee would’ve needed its mother to help the young sea cow feed on seagrass.
When the couple saw no other manatees around, they called the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, who asked the pair to monitor the manatee until someone arrived a few hours later.
“We were very relieved to see Officer [Jason] Rafter round the corner in his patrol boat with his lights on,” Alex said.
The couple said they were impressed by the FWC officer’s care for the manatee.
“He immediately knew to put it on some life rafts and to keep it off the deck of the boat and keep it wet with buckets of water,” Alex said.
An FWC truck waited for the officer to return to land to transport the manatee.
As they transferred the creature, the group settled on naming the manatee Danger because of the dangerous conditions it was found in.
With Danger in safe hands, the couple credited the way they handled the situation to the fishing community in the Florida Keys.
“Any one of them would have done the same thing. So for us, we’re like, ‘That’s obviously what we would do, that’s what all of our friends would do.’ It wasn’t even a thought not to do it,” Shannon said.
“It would take a pretty cold heart to walk away from that opportunity to help,” Alex said.
Danger will be taken to SeaWorld Orlando to undergo rehabilitation and won’t be ready for release until he matures, which officials said may take several years.
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