CHASING CHESSIE; THE WANDERING MANATEE

Palm Beach Post (Florida) August 21, 1995

Copyright 1995 Palm Beach Newspaper, Inc.

CANDY HATCHER

Chessie, come home.

The vacation season’s over. The heat wave has passed. Autumn is coming, and Rhode Island, picturesque as it is, is no place for a Florida manatee when the temperature drops.

Chessie, Florida’s seafaring ambassador to the Northeast, is on an incredible, record-breaking journey up the East Coast, an area no manatee has ever been seen before. In his 10-week adventure, he has traveled more than 1,600 miles.

He popped by Charleston, S.C., Savannah, Ga., and a fishing village in North Carolina before arriving in last year’s vacation spot, Chesapeake Bay, where he got his name. He spent a week there, then swam on past Delaware, New Jersey and the Big Apple.

Now, Chessie – an adult male manatee who weighs 1,250 pounds and reeks of cuteness – is somewhere off Connecticut or Rhode Island, in water the natives claim ”does something for you” when you swim in it.

Over the weekend Chessie, who has only occasionally strayed from his northbound course, doubled back into eastern Connecticut from southeastern Rhode Island. His trackers are hopeful, but not certain, that Chessie has had enough of the rough surf and 68-degree water and is headed home.

”It’s a long way from there to Florida,” said Jim Reid, a biologist with the National Biological Service, who has been following Chessie most of the summer, but ”that’s the right direction.”

As long as the water temperature doesn’t dip below 66 for long, Chessie should be able to make the trek back, Reid said.

The Yankee-loving manatee is smart, has an uncanny memory, excellent navigational skills and sharp instincts for avoiding captors, propellers and trouble, his trackers say. When the water gets too cold, he heads for a power plant on an inland pond. When he senses he’s in the middle of a Saturday morning water scooter race, he ducks into an inlet. When he’s ready for a feast, he goes to a wildlife refuge, where seagrass is plentiful.

The gentle, giant sea critter made it through a series of locks in Virginia with help from some humans. He spent several days vacationing in Atlantic City. He swung by Coney Island, toured the Statue of Liberty, rounded Ellis Island, paddled by prisoners at Rikers Island and meandered up the East River and into Long Island Sound. Last week, he snoozed in a vacant boat slip at a Connecticut marina, then hung out with surfers in Rhode Island.

Hauling a tell-tale yellow radio transmitter so trackers know where to find him, Chessie has made new friends, tasted new foods and worked hard enough to keep off that worrisome extra weight that tends to accompany vacation.

Chessie has left warm fuzzies all over the East Coast. But he’s also taught people in New England what manatees are all about. And he’s put a soft face on environmentalists’ efforts to save the coastlands and marshes, so manatees and other less lovable creatures will have homes.

Biologists first became acquainted with Chessie last summer, when the manatee swam up to the Chesapeake and then wouldn’t go home. Manatee lovers worried that the water would get too cold for Chessie, and he’d become sluggish, stop eating and die.

On Oct. 1, after eluding captors for eight days, Chessie was surrounded, put on a stretcher and taken to the National Aquarium in Baltimore, then flown to Sea World in Orlando. On Oct. 7, after veterinarians determined he was healthy, he was taken to the Upper Banana River in Brevard County, fitted with an electronic radio transmitter so biologists could track his travels, and released.

The transmitter, a cylindrical buoy tethered to a rubber belt wrapped around Chessie’s tail, didn’t last long. Within three weeks, Chessie ”engaged in courting behavior” and lost it. Another was reattached during the winter, and in mid-January, Chessie was tracked to the warm waters by the power plant at Port Everglades. He apparently spent the winter in South Florida, then traveled to Jacksonville as the waters warmed.

On June 13, Chessie began his journey north. He swam 525 miles – from Jacksonville to Chesapeake Bay – in 19 days, averaging 28 miles a day. It was a quick trip by manatee standards. Normally, manatees swim about 2 mph and spend five to eight hours a day eating.

Although he’s one of about 100 manatees being tracked on the East Coast, Chessie is the only one to travel farther than North Carolina for the summer. His behavior has been very much that of a normal manatee, his trackers said. ”What’s different is he hasn’t stopped,” Reid said.

Chessie’s travels have prompted jokes. One traveler theorized that Chessie went to Ellis Island for a visa. Another said the manatee had picked up a Yankee accent. Those chasing Chessie were hoping he’d visit a few more fun places before returning home. ”Block Island would be nice,” one said. ”Or how about Paris?”

Biologists generally frown on attaching human characteristics to a wild animal, but Chessie’s travels are too tempting even for the most serious scientists.

Reid said he changed the manatee’s transmitter and batteries in July. Since then, he said, Chessie’s ”been going and going and going.”

The manatee has become a legend, particularly to little boys with big imaginations and no previous experience with the lumbering creatures.

Corey Mantias, 6 1/2, was hanging out on the dock of his parents’ marina Aug. 10 when he spotted an unusual buoy, followed by ”a sea monster” wiggling in the shallow water of an empty boat slip. He and his brother called for help. Corey vowed never to go in the water again.

”I thought it was a crocodile,” said Brian Mantias, 10. ”Then we thought it was a whale. And then some people told us it was a manatee.”

The boys, with help from big brother Gary, freed Chessie’s radio transmitter from under the floating dock and helped him swim away. Later, Reid and Linda Taylor with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service came by to say thanks and to explain about manatees.

As Corey tells it, the manatee ”doesn’t bite. It doesn’t hurt. It goes real slow. It’s friendly.” Adds Brian: ”There’s a lot of manatees in Florida dying. The propellers are killing them.”

Corey says he and his brother saved Chessie. He hopes that if Chessie comes back to Bridgeport, he’ll stop by and say thanks. ”We tried to help it, right Brian?”

Rhode Islanders were thrilled to hear that the mild-mannered Floridian had visited their state. ”This is wonderful!” said Mary Lindman, a Jamestown, R.I., merchant who used to spend winters in Florida. ”I’ll say a couple of prayers for him, poor little guy.”

Frank Malerba of Queens saw Chessie on a weekend visit to Connecticut. ”He must love the North. What’s he doing here?”

That’s a good question, researchers say. If they could only spend a few minutes in the mind of this Magellan of manatees.

Biologist Reid said no one knows why Chessie continues north. Mature male manatees normally roam during the summer, Reid said.

Chessie’s adventure also has tested the satellite tracking system like never before, biologists say. The system, which transmits Chessie’s location up to six times a day, also tells researchers the water temperature.

Public awareness of manatees has increased dramatically since 1983, when Reid began studying the marine mammals. ”That familiarity means people aren’t planting rakes in the backs of manatees” or eating them as frequently as they used to, he said. ”They’re willing to do things to protect the critters.”

But they haven’t done enough. ”Nowhere is it worse than Palm Beach to Dade County,” Reid said. ”The conflict between boating and manatees in the winter is a real problem.” Last year, 192 manatee deaths were recorded. In the first three months of this year, 61 deaths were recorded.

Manatees are an endangered species. A 1992 survey showed there were 1,856 West Indian, or Florida, manatees, and more die than are born each year. Florida is designated as a manatee refuge, and those who harass or hurt one can be fined $ 20,000 and sent to prison for as long as three years.

Because no manatee has ever been seen in the Northeast, biologists see Chessie as ”an animal of significant research value,” said Jim Valade, a recovery biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The path the animal took getting to Rhode Island – and whatever path he takes coming home, assuming he swims – will tell researchers volumes about the heartiness of manatees. Recovery biologists say they will fly Chessie home, like they did last year, only as a last resort – if he gets sick or sluggish.

Environmentalists say Chessie has been able to travel north because there are protected marshes and coastlines that provide food. And they’re grateful for the publicity Chessie has brought to their towns.

”Maybe this manatee can have coattails that other species that are less charismatic can ride on,” said Marcianna Caplis, spokeswoman for the Ninigret Wildlife Refuge in Rhode Island, where Chessie was seen late last week.

Added Reid: ”It’s not just finding manatees adorable. It might mean slowing down your boat, or improving water quality. The more you start to look into this, the greater impact for humans. And other critters need the help, as well. . . . If we can protect grassbeds for manatees, we can protect them for a whole lot of other animals that aren’t cute and cuddly.”

ABOUT CHESSIE

AGE: No way to determine, but at least 10. (Oldest manatee on record died at 56.)

SEX: Male.

LENGTH: 10 feet.

WEIGHT: 1,250 pounds.

DISTANCE: 20 to 30 miles per day

FACTS ON CHESSIE

Distance traveled this summer: More than 1,600 miles

Furthest northern point traveled this summer: Rhode Island

Food: Saltmarsh grasses and species of marine algae.

Source of his nickname: From Chesapeake Bay, which is the northernmost point Chessie traveled in October 1994 before he was flown back to Florida.

Why is he doing this? No one knows. Researchers doubt that he is ill or confused. They speculate that he has adapted his diet to zostera, a type of sea grass that grows in patches from the North Carolina coast northward. Or, perhaps he is just a curious explorer. Staff researcher Michelle Quigley contributed to this report.