Inside look: New Manatee Critical Care Center at Jacksonville Zoo

There is new help for manatees that get sick or injured in Northeast Florida waters.

After a year of construction, Jacksonville Zoo and Gardens now has a Manatee Critical Care Center.

“Manatees get boat struck, they get entangled, they get cold stressed, they get orphaned sometimes,” said Dan Maloney, Jacksonville Zoo’s deputy director of animal care and conservation.

It’s the fourth manatee critical care center in the state.

In the past, injured manatees had to be transported to Tampa, Miami or Orlando.

In November, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission crews freed a 1,000-pound manatee from a storm drain in Jacksonville’s Ortega neighborhood.

She had to be trucked over to Sea World in Orlando to get the care she needed.

Now local injured manatees won’t have to go as far.

Jacksonville Zoo crews have a lift floor to safely lower and raise an injured manatee in and out of a medical tank.

Eventually, if the manatee is healthy enough, crews can lift a gate to allow it into a connected public viewing tank.

“It wasn’t intended to be an exhibit. But we do want to give a glimpse if the animal is healthy enough and stable enough to be viewed,” Maloney said.

The center cost more than $2 million.

FWC counted 6,620 manatees in Florida’s water for the third year in a row, which they say is an encouraging sign.

Those numbers include 3,488 manatees on the east coast.

Cox Media Group