Three elderly manatees, including two named Romeo and Juliet, were successfully transported to two of the nation’s three critical care centers for manatees from Miami Seaquarium, addressing concerns about their advanced age and health conditions.
The Manatee Rescue & Rehabilitation Partnership and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said Tuesday that Romeo and Juliet, both over 65 years old, are now at ZooTampa, while Clarity is at Seaworld Orlando.
“We are very excited to have our new residents at the zoo,” Dr. Cynthia Stringfield, senior vice president of Animal Health, Conservation and Education at ZooTampa.
For Romeo and Juliet, the trek for those two took five hours. Romeo weighs more than 2,00 pounds and Juliet weighs more than 3,000 pounds.
The manatees are undergoing comprehensive medical evaluations at their respective facilities
The operation involved specialized transport vehicles and a team of experts due to the manatees’ age and health conditions.
“ZooTampa has taken ownership of them because they had some longstanding health concerns and things like that,” Stringfield said. “And we specialize in that and felt like we could give them a good home and give them some good, excellent medical care.”
The transport of these manatees comes to the relief of activists like Phil Demers.
“We are looking forward to seeing how well they are thriving there,” he said.
Romeo and Juliet had been at the Miami Seaquarium since the 1950s and were moved to improve their social environment.
Demers took video of the manatees at their old home, and was highly critical of the conditions they were kept in and pushed for the relocation effort.
“These types of wins for activists are rare, they’re few and far between, but this one, in light of Lolita’s death, is very sweet.
Lolita the Killer Whale, who lived at the Seaquarium for decade, died in October before she could make her planned return to open waters.
Officials with the Miami Seaquarium said they arrived at their facility before the enactment of the Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act.
Clarity, a female who was rescued back in 2009 with watercraft-related injuries, will be temporarily cared for at SeaWorld Orlando until a group of MRP experts can determine the best placement for her at another facility.
Now, with Clarity, Romeo and Juliet making the trek to a new home, caretakers said that they are where they belong.
“They came out of the stretcher no problem, cruised around and checked out their new surroundings,” Stringfield said.
ZooTampa said that they are going to give Romeo and Juliet medical care that they need and will eventually move them to another facility, which will create an opening for injured manatees from the wild.
The injured manatees will be rehabilitated at ZooTampa and will be released back into the wild.
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