James Presents Stormy                                                                                   

STORMY THE MANATEE

Meet Stormy -- I was his daddy for a little over a year and he is like a member of my family.

Stormy is one of the first captive born manatees to ever be released into the wild -- after a year of tracking, Stormy was declared a wild manatee and his tracking equipment was removed.
Stormy was one of the first manatess I worked with at Wildlife Trust [See also].

Because stormy had been born in a man made pool and had lived his life there, he had no idea what a river was -- after he was released into Blue Spring, a tributary of the St.John's river in Deland Florida, Stormy would try to follow the other manatees into the river but would stop and turn around when he came to the dark tannin stained waters of the river--- it seemed he thought the river was a wall simply because he could not see thru it -- I am sure Stormy was confused with the disappearance of the other animals when they swam into the "wall" and disappeared. It took about 6 weeks before Stormy ventured into the dark waters of the river.

For the first 2 years in the wild, Stormy did not seem to go further than 10 to 15 miles from Blue Spring and he returns to the spring every winter to find warm water.
The river temperature varies within 50 - 80 degrees while most Florida springs remain a constant 72 degrees year round...manatees need at least 70 degrees to survive..
It is always a pleasant relief to me when someone at the Blue Spring park reports Stormy is back home for the winter.