ST. SIMONS ISLAND, Georgia — A manatee tangled in crab trap lines near St. Simons Island in Georgia is free after being hopelessly ensnared for two days in Georgia’s first such documented case.
The drama played out over two days last week on the Mackay and Hampton rivers near Brunswick after a fishing guide spotted the animal in the precarious situation.
Though often unnoticed in turbid coastal waters, Florida manatees are 1,000-pound-plus, federally protected marine mammals that migrate from Florida into Georgia and the Carolinas each spring into early fall to feed on abundant marsh plants and algae, wildlife officials said.
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The call to the Marine Mammal Program of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources from St. Simons’ Capt. Davis Galland came on July 29.
It revealed a rarity: the first documented entanglement of a manatee in Georgia. The adult female had the line and buoy from a commercial crab pot wrapped tightly around her body, a news release from the department said.
The line and buoy was just behind the head and encircling the manatee’s right pectoral flipper, said senior wildlife biologist Jessica Thompson, who leads the program.
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The department responded quickly, attaching a satellite tracking tag and cutting away the anchoring crab trap before a storm chased the crew and Galland, who stayed to see if help was needed, off the water.
The next day, a three-boat, multi-state group including DNR, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, Clearwater Marine Aquarium Research Institute, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Savannah State University Dolphin Sciences Lab managed to completely free the manatee.
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