Manatee Ranger

By Susan Beckhorn

	Wayne Hartley, at the age he became interested in manatees.

It was Christmas, 1953. The boy, Wayne Hartley, carefully turned the pages of his new book. Grandmother understood his love for forests, wetlands, and especially animals. It was a beautiful book, full of photographs of North American wildlife: grizzly bears, cougars, beavers, and many more.

He turned a page and stopped. What was this strange animal?

It looked like a cross between an elephant and a seal, floating in blue-green water. Its whiskered muzzle almost seemed to smile.

That was the moment when Wayne first came to love manatees. Now he is a park ranger at Blue Spring State Park, a wildlife refuge in northeastern Florida. He works with these amazing, peaceful creatures every day.

In fact, he has followed the population of manatees at Blue Spring for twenty years—longer than anyone else has studied a group of manatees. Wayne is a leading authority. Some people call him the Manatee Guru (teacher).

Watchful Shepherd

	Wayne Hartley is a shepherd of manatees.

Wayne is like a shepherd watching over his flock. He knows more than 130 manatees by sight.

Manatees like warm water. They spend the warm months along the coasts of the southeastern states and the Gulf of Mexico. Every November, when the water gets cold, the animals return to warm waters, such as Blue Spring.

That’s when Wayne identifies and photographs them. He records new visitors, and he checks up on old friends.

Then, until they leave again sometime in March, he makes daily paddle patrols. First he canoes up to the “boil,” where Blue Spring bubbles out of a 120-foot-deep hole in the fossilized coral that forms Florida’s “backbone.” He searches the shallow bottom near the boil for flipper drag marks, nose prints, and drop-pings—signs that manatees have been there.

Then he drifts down the run to where it flows into the Saint Johns River, counting manatees, taking photos, and checking the water temperature. He names new babies. If he finds a sick or injured manatee, he arranges to have it sent to Florida’s Sea World for treatment.

	Manatees tend to be loners until cold weather forces them to seek warm springs.

Manatees need watching because they are endangered. They are dying from loss of habitat, pollution, accidents with boats, and natural causes. Because a female has a baby only every two to five years, every manatee is precious.

But to Wayne, they are precious also because they are individuals with personalities. There’s Howie, who’s been around at Blue Spring longer than Wayne. He likes to splash people and might mistake a canoe for a lovely lady manatee.

Georgia was raised at Sea World, and she birthed her calf, Peaches, in a canal nearby. She’s the first captive-raised manatee to reproduce in the wild.

And Lucille used to surface unexpectedly beside the canoe and breathe into Wayne’s face. Now she’s shy, after being captured to remove fishing line from her flipper. Does Wayne have a favorite? “I love ’em all,” he says with a chuckle.

“Get Wet!”
Part of the job description for a manatee ranger should be “Get wet!” Wayne gets wet a lot. When Lucille’s flipper was tangled up, Wayne played canoe cowboy. “It was just like cutting a steer out of a herd,” he says. “The others realized who I was looking for and lay back down on the bottom as if to say, ‘No problem, he’s not after us.’ Then I chased her down the run into a waiting net.” After Wayne snipped away the fishing line, Lucille gave a powerful smack with her tail that soaked everyone.

One morning, Wayne discovered Destiny tangled in old rope caught on a piling near the mouth of the run. She was belly up, struggling. Her calf, Paddy Doyle, was swimming nearby.

As Wayne came toward Destiny to cut her loose with his pocket-knife, she panicked. When the foam and spray settled, Mama was free and Wayne was drenched. After making sure that she wasn’t injured, Wayne called a local scuba club to clear the rope from all the pilings.

	A calf stays close to its mother, Judith. At birth, calves are about four feet long and weigh sixty to eighty pounds. They stay with their mothers for one to two years.

But the wettest was the day Wayne took a federal researcher with no fewer than three cameras out to see manatees close-up. It was a Sunday, and the walkway beside the run was packed with visitors.

Up swam Howie. He nuzzled the canoe.

Apparently, in his enthusiasm, Howie bumped into the canoe and scared himself. There was a splash and a wump as Howie’s tail slammed the side of the canoe.

The two men found themselves bobbing beside their overturned boat. Their cameras were soaked, but dozens on shore clicked merrily away.

The Park’s Beginning
In 1970, the famous explorer Jacques Cousteau visited Blue Spring and found eleven manatees. After his visit, the state purchased nearly four thousand acres around the spring and created a park.

Today, three of those manatees, including Howie, still visit Blue Spring. Now they bring along more than a hundred friends.

Every year, more manatees learn to use refuges like the one at Blue Spring State Park. It takes people like Wayne Hartley to make sure the animals are understood and protected. He is working to help this exotic American animal find a secure future.

To find out more about manatees, send your name, grade level, and address to
Save the Manatee Club
500 N. Maitland Avenue
Maitland, FL 32751
Kids’ classes, organizations, and clubs can adopt a manatee with a donation of ten dollars.