Scientists worry Gulf oil spill may endanger manatees headed for Mobile Bay

By Ben Raines
May 23, 2010, 6:15AM Scientists are worried that manatees moving along the Florida coast and headed for Mobile Bay could be swimming into trouble. A pod of manatees was seen and photographed off Destin, Fla., Thursday. There have been sightings in Orange Beach, Fowl River and Fairhope in the last two weeks, according to Ruth Carmichael, a University of South Alabama marine biologist. Bama, the manatee tagged in the Mobile-Tensaw Delta last summer, is in Apalachicola Bay in Florida, slowly wending her way back to Alabama, according to the latest data from the satellite tag, Carmichael said. “We know the manatees are here and are migrating along the coast. There is more and more information coming in suggesting there is a lot of oil moving toward shore underwater. We have to assume we are having our waters exposed,” she said. Carmichael and students from her lab at the Dauphin Island Sea Lab helped put the satellite tag on Bama. “There is almost no information to assess or predict what could happen to these animals. We don’t know what happens to them if they swim through oil, if they ingest oil. There has never been an opportunity to research those questions.” Carmichael said the only definitive thing known about manatees and oil is that if they encounter enough of it, it can kill them. She made her comments after viewing photos taken Thursday of a group of seven animals, including a baby, swimming along the beach off Destin. “What we’re looking at, very clearly, is a group of animals migrating westward from Destin, probably toward Mobile Bay,” Carmichael said. “You can see the animals have oriented themselves in a very clear, streamlined traveling position. They’re not milling around. They’re not foraging. They are moving. There is purpose there.” …