By Valerie Rains
One of the first things you’ll learn when visiting Florida’s coastal manatee habitats is that these creatures make people emotional. Any seasoned guide you talk to will have stories of travelers returning from a swimming encounter in a heightened state: laughing, teary-eyed, dumbstruck, or awed. Even veteran ecologist Joyce Palmer, who manages the 179-acre Crystal River National Wildlife Refuge (the only one in the United States dedicated specifically to the protection of these marine mammals), can clearly recall her earliest underwater meeting, while attending a work conference here back in 2007. “It was the most amazing day I’d had as a biologist, swimming with manatees,” she says. Palmer is far from alone in her feelings—some 400,000 people make their way to the refuge annually, hoping to get a little face time with these intriguing animals. Whether it’s their broad, wriggling snouts and wistful, wide-set eyes; the puppyish way they’ll snuffle over to a human to suss them out; or their sheer size an average adult is 10 feet long and 1,000-plus pounds), they make an indelible impact. And their ability to evoke this kind of emotional response in people might just be the key to manatees’ long-term survival—even as it requires a delicate dance to prevent in-person access from becoming its own kind of problem.
The Forgotten Mermaids
Manatees largely swam under the radar of public attention for decades. But thanks in part to Jacques Cousteau’s 1972 documentary episode on manatees called “The Forgotten Mermaids” (parts of which were filmed in Crystal River) and the Marine Mammal Protection Act, which became law later that year, enthusiasm for these creatures began to swell. By 1975, they were named the official marine mammal of Florida.
While they have no natural predators, manatees have very specific biological needs (consistently warm water and a steady supply of seagrasses to eat) that make them vulnerable to habitat loss and to dangerous interactions with boat propellers as they migrate to their seasonal safe havens. The residents and refuge stewards of Crystal River are working hard to address both threats.
But first, some geography: Crystal River, the town, sits on Kings Bay on the Gulf Coast of Florida, about 80 miles north of Tampa. Crystal River, the waterway, is about 7 miles long and connects Kings Bay to the Gulf of Mexico. Populations of West Indian manatees have long included Kings Bay in their annual migration routes because it stays reliably at 72 degrees (it’s warmed by dozens of natural underwater hot springs) and due to the aquatic vegetation that grows along its bed. By the mid-1990s, however, pollution, invasive plant species, and one particularly devastating storm had left the area unable to support most marine life.
A Delicate Ecosystem
In 2012, the local nonprofit Save Crystal River formed with an ambitious mission: to clean up the waterway and restore this habitat. The multiyear effort wasn’t easy or cheap—hundreds of millions of pounds of algae and debris first had to be removed with giant vacuums before half a million individual clumps of eelgrass could be planted (by hand!) across the riverbed. But it paid off. While the refuge’s seasonal surveys in the early 1990s counted only a few hundred manatees in Kings Bay, in the last few years, upwards of 1,300 have returned to eat, rest, calve, congregate, and wait for the surrounding ocean temperatures to rise to a tolerable range, making these the largest winter gatherings of these animals in natural habitats anywhere on earth.
A plan to facilitate more responsible encounters also took shape. The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service now requires commercial tours of the refuge’s waters to screen an educational video that demonstrates passive observation techniques (no touching, hovering, or descending below the water’s surface for a closer look) and outlines the laws that protect manatees from harassment before departing. Within the refuge, seven sanctuaries covering 40 acres are closed off to humans from mid-November to the end of March.
It all adds up to make this one of the most hospitable human-adjacent places for manatees—and one of the most thoughtfully managed environments for observing them in the wild. Other species are benefiting as well, including fish. Marie Bienkowski, vice president of the Save Crystal River board and a longtime resident, has seen the ecosystem start to rebound right from her own backyard. “Sheepshead were gone for years, but now they’re back; I even saw a stingray the other day,” she says. Inspired by this passion for preservation, my partner, Tim, and I visited Florida’s Gulf Coast last February to feel the manatee magic for ourselves.
Face-to-Face
Less than an hour after arriving in Crystal River, Tim and I were already shimmying into wet suits in the parking lot of Hunter Springs Kayaks and preparing to paddle out to one of the several nearby manatee hot spots. (The suits are passive observation aids that help boost swimmers’ buoyancy.) It was partly cloudy but still warm when we set off through Kings Bay in our kayaks, led by our guide, who was piloting a stand-up paddleboard for a better angle on manatee activity below the surface.
At first, it seemed like we might be out of luck. The area we were passing through had recovered well during the initial restoration, but a recent hurricane had delivered a setback, flooding the bay with salt water and burying some of the newly planted grasses, so the visibility wasn’t great. Tim and I made sure to appreciate what we could see—tough-looking pelicans keeping watch from their perches, mullet splashing all around us, and a pair of cormorants twining their necks together in a treetop.
At a site called Jurassic Spring, we spotted a tight cluster of snorkelers and hung back, waiting for them to disperse. As with many things in life, our patience was rewarded. Once the group had moved along, we made our way over and slipped out of our kayaks. The water was much clearer there, and the sky overhead was suddenly brighter.
Then I saw her: a single massive, majestic mama suspended a few feet from the surface, just…floating. With my hands tucked into my armpits (both for warmth and as a reminder not to splash), I drifted nearby, transfixed by her stillness and her size. At one point, she brought her face close to mine, and it felt like we inhabited our own private snow globe—with sparkles of sunlight standing in for glittery faux flakes.
Eventually, the cold got to me (what’s warm for a manatee can still give the average human a chill), and I hoisted myself out of the water just as our guide poured cups of hot cocoa from a large thermos balanced on the deck of his paddleboard, noting proudly, “All the [big] boats do this, but we’re the only kayak [tour] that does.”
Paddling back to the dock, I couldn’t quit grinning. At the hotel that evening, Tim and I streamed the Cousteau documentary, imagining what it felt like to capture these creatures on film for the first time—and amazed by our luck to have seen them too.
Memorable Encounters
The next day, we tried a different type of manatee excursion, a small-group boat ride through Kings Bay with swimming stops bodies to navigate and investigate their surroundings. More than once, a manatee approached for a better “look” at one of us, and we couldn’t help but relish the sustained eye contact—even if we knew it was essentially one-sided.
For all the care put into ensuring safe, nonstressful encounters, the system isn’t perfect—and there are some manatee enthusiasts who believe people shouldn’t be getting into the water with them at all. Fortunately for anyone who’d rather not take the plunge, there’s Three Sisters Springs, a jewellike 1-acre body of water surrounded by a sliver of forest and featuring a wooden boardwalk. With Palmer as our guide, we circled the spring on foot as she pointed out several new arrivals, mostly orphaned calves that had been transported from area rehabilitation centers and released only a few days prior.
We paused at an observation deck to watch a mother and baby manatee resting in a shallow spot, the little one keeping close by her mama’s side. Palmer told us the two of them might remain here straight through until the next winter – a common practice for mothers and calves, who tend to stick together for the first couple years during the young one’s life. As the late-afternoon sun played on the turquoise water, I almost wished I could do the same.
