Monitoring the Manatee for Oil Ills

[babylonsister]

Monitoring the Manatee for Oil Ills

By JOHN LELAND
Published: June 20, 2010


APALACHICOLA, Fla. — To the people who know her best, Bama is a skittish creature: smart, a good traveler, does not mix much with her peers. On a recent afternoon, Allen Aven watched her from an anchored pontoon boat, counting the time between her breaths.

Bama is tagged with a transmitter, which is tethered to her tail. More Photos »

“This is a good environment for her,” Mr. Aven said, looking around the busy, narrow waterway of Scipio Creek, across from the Up the Creek Raw Bar. “It’s sheltered from wave action. There’s lots of vegetation, and it’s relatively fresh water.”

A large gray snout belonging to Bama, a manatee, broke the water’s surface.

“Breath,” Mr. Aven yelled.

Mr. Aven is part of a team of researchers from the Dauphin Island Sea Lab in Alabama who are monitoring Bama and other manatees — massive aquatic mammals that are on the list of endangered species — for signs that they are being affected by the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Mr. Aven and Nicole Taylor gathered water samples and recorded that Bama appeared to be eating regularly — she weighs in at around 1,200 pounds — and was not discolored, a sign of infection.

Until recently, biologists believed that manatees rarely ventured west of peninsular Florida, where, so far, no oil has appeared. But in 2007, Ruth Carmichael, who leads the Dauphin Island team, began documenting a relatively large summer migration of manatees to Mobile Bay, Ala. — leading them directly into and through the path of the oil from the Deepwater Horizon leak. From a couple of dozen to as many as 100 come to Mobile Bay for the summer, out of a total North American population of 5,000, she said.

As oil spreads into the bay, these travelers are now in danger of having their migratory routes and habitats contaminated, putting at risk a group that Dr. Carmichael believes may represent the scouts for the larger population.

more...

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/21/us/21manatee.html?hpw