Could another manatee - or more than one - have found its way up the East Coast this summer, swimming into the Chesapeake Bay all the way to Baltimore?
The National Aquarium staff has been scrambling to confirm reported sightings of a manatee in the Patapsco River in recent days. Jennifer Dittmar, who coordinates marine mammal stranding efforts for the aquarium, said a fisherman reported seeing a manatee in the Middle Branch of the Patapsco River by Harbor Hospital last Wednesday.
Another sighting was reported Sunday by the crew aboard a city fire boat at Fort McHenry, Dittmar said. Neither report could be confirmed, though.
The only confirmed sighting was in August, Dittmar said, when Ryan Neal took the above photograph from the railroad bridge at Swan Park near the mouth of the Middle Branch.
Dittmar said she's been working with U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials in Florida, where manatees normally live, to find and assess the health of this wayward animal. She emailed local marina operators Monday asking them for help in tracking the animals, which are native to Florida.
"The current water temperatures of the Upper Patapsco are quickly becoming too cold to support a manatee and its natural food source, which are submerged grasses," Dittmar wrote.
If anyone spots what they think is a manatee, they're asked to take a picture of it if possible and call 410-373-0083 to report it so authorities can check it out.
Manatees have been wandering up the coast repeatedly over the years. One that's been given the name Ilya popped up last year around Havre de Grace in late summer and then made its way all the way to New England - possibly swimming through the Chesapeake & Delaware canal to get from the upper bay back to the Atlantic coast.
Ilya was still in New Jersey waters when the fall chill set in, prompting authorities to capture it and return it to Florida to recuperate. Sightings this summer have been so fleeting that it's been impossible to tell if Ilya has made a return visit to the bay, or it's another one.
For more on manatees, go here.
(Photo by Ryan Neal, courtesy National Aquarium)