During the colder months manatees migrate down from a couple of states to Florida for warmth and to find large enough food sources to sustain themselves. Over the years that has become a bit harder for the manatees as many locations are no longer food abundant and don’t provide warmth like they used to.
Thankfully I happen to know of a naturally occurring warm area that has a lot of food for the manatees. The Blue Spring State Park ends up being quite a heaven for the manatees and it brings a lot of them in.
I don’t go during the peak or when the park has its annual manatee festival. As I find that is when far too many people are there. I prefer it when there is a little less of a crowd. Granted even then it was still quite busy.
We ended up arriving perhaps twenty minutes after the park had opened up. By then it was already too late to go just right in. There was a massive line and quite a lot of waiting to be had. We had no idea just how long the line was till we moved up and found out they opened up a second section for cars to drive down and wait to keep people off the main road blocking traffic.
It was at that point when people had to drive past the park entrance and down a dirt road that lots of people started to turn around. I guess they were just not willing to wait. The funny thing is up till that point you think lots of people are leaving the park as you would see cars once in a while in the other lane. Turns out nope. Those were just the people refusing to wait any longer to get in.
I did not mind the wait. I even tried to play Pokémon Go since this place has a stop right outside and quite a few water Pokémon to catch. The internet out here on the other hand was not that great. Sometimes I was able to try and catch something. Other times I was just stuck with the gaming loading and doing nothing.
By the time we got in the official count was at 494 manatees in the springs. The springs provide quite a warm spot during the night while the park is closed for the manatees to come in and stay warm enough to survive.
During the day the manatees start to leave the warmth of the springs to find food that is not that far away. It is mind-blowing that many of them can eat 100 pounds of plants a day. It’s not any wonder then that other areas are simply not able to provide enough natural food.
Thankfully food is not an issue at this location. There are other locations however the staff were talking about that manatees were starting to starve at. They were even attempting to truck in food. That is however a lot of food. Just for what was here will be around 50k pounds of food required just for the day to sustain them. I can’t imagen how other areas were coping even if they were attempting to truck in food.
This park has a rather nice wooded walkway with a banister that follows the spring rather closely. There are also a few ramps that go down and over the water slightly to take you in for a closer look.
During the warmer months, people will go swimming, cannoning and other water activities in the springs. During the manatee season, however, no one is permitted in the water. I have seen enough warning signs to think of never going into those waters during summer. Even more so when one of the staff said a local alligator that hangs out was given a name.
There are one or two exceptions to the rule. There is the official manatee counter. They said he has been counting manatees for decades. He happened to be there in the water slowly moving over the manatees and getting a current count while we were there.
This park also has some walkways and other spots that I did not check out during this trip. Since they charge just a couple of bucks by the carload to get in. This might be a place I return to at some point during the summer and see what else they have for activities.
As far as the manatees themselves. Most of them at this point in the morning were all slowly starting to drift out of the springs for food. Some areas of the springs would be empty. While other parts had quite a few of them all grouped up together.
The manatee population has had a lot of struggles over the years. That is why it was so amazing to see so many baby manatees in this group. You could also see just how battered the older ones were from boats hitting them.
Many of the views here were truly breathtaking. You might or might not notice there are quite a few manatees in the water at this spot as well. There were also quite a few different kinds of fish hanging out in the warm springs as well.
We even lucked out and got to see a manatee that was being tracked. They have a couple of them that they use for tracking the migration down. It also helps researchers find blockages in the waterways the manatees take so they can clear them out.
Manatees prefer to return to the same spot every year. When the way gets blocked they could travel hundreds of miles trying to find an alliterative route. If they cannot they have been known to retrace their steps. Usually by then if a waterway is blocked they have it cleared out. That however means such manatees have burned through a lot of calories going the wrong way and are at high risk of not making it.
If for whatever reason the tracker gets stuck on a floating log they are made to break off. The last thing they want is for the tracker to trap in any way a manatee. The one we saw seemed to have little care about it. It was sitting down deep into the spring with the tracker sometimes being fully submerged with it.
Thankfully when we went down there we had some hot chocolate with us. They also do have a canteen in the park if I recall. There are just no straws allowed. They also don’t want you taking any food along the trail.
After a while, the sun did come up into the spring itself. It was kind of nice to feel the warmth of the sunlight. The light jacket I had on me was decent but with how often you stop and look you can get kind of cold. I was starting to keep my hands in my jacket for warmth when I was not using my phone for photos.
Along the walkways, the views tended to be more like this. You usually had some trees in the view line. You were also a bit away from the water. While you could still spot things in person the camera did not see much. You can however still see there are a few fish down by the trees.
This place was also crowded enough during later December that I did not take any photos of just the walkways or the ramps that took you down closer to the springs. Sometimes we even had to wait for a spot to open down closer to the water.
The day we went in December happened to be one of the warmer days of the week after a cold front was on its way out. It appears many were waiting for such a day to occur. As I’ve been down here in the past when it was not this busy.
Final Thoughts
Between the forty or so minutes of waiting to get into the park. Along with walking around the park for about an hour and a half, it was time to go. A lot of the manatees had already left or were on their way out. More and more people were also trying to get in a bit too late to great a real show.
This is always something fun to do at least once a year. I might return to this park at some point and see what else there is to do. While the manatees won’t be around by then. Just seeing the springs again and checking out some of the walkways I skipped over would be worth another trip.
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Photos were taken and content was written by @Enjar about my personal experiences in the real world away from the computer at home.
