Dundee has remained in Hontoon Dead River and has been
observed feeding and socializing with up to seven other animals since his
retagging on 4/19/06. He is always with other animals during our
observations. The area he has been utilizing is the same area that
Stormy used back in 2003.
6/6/06:
Dundee
was captured on
05/25/06
for his first health assessment, three
months after his release. He
had recently moved north from High Banks area of the
St. Johns
into
Lake
Woodruff
.
The day before captures, he was in
Lake
Dexter
and during the night he traveled nine
miles north into Blue Creek just south of
Lake George
.
Just before capture,
Dundee
had begun to bottom rest with one
other animal in a quiet cove of two feet in depth under fallen trees.
You would have never know there were manatees there much less a
tag. After three capture
attempts,
Dundee
and one other animal were caught but
the other manatee got out of the net while pulling
Dundee
on board.
Due to
Dundee
’s size, it was a difficult capture
and the crew was ecstatic the other animal found its way out of the net.
Blood,
morphometrics, ultrasound, weight and fecal were obtained.
Dr. Dave Murphy of Lowry Park Zoo gave
Dundee
an overall condition of good, with a
body score of 3. He lost
315 lbs or 20% of his weight since his release on
02/21/06
.
His belly was slightly round but his skin was loose indicating
recent weight loss. His new
scars which he received between
05/08/06
and
05/15/06
were healing (yes, same time that
Turtle received his in another location of the river).
Blood values are pending.
Weight
Straight Body Length
02/21/06
1615 lbs
318 cm
05/25/06
1300 lbs
----
Ultrasound
readings showed decreases across the board but all are still way above
normal.
All
girth measurements decreased across the board and are also way above
normal.
Dundee
’s belt was tightened and all the
extra gear from retagging efforts over the past three months was
removed. He received a new
tag and released back in the area where the other manatee he was caught
with was last seen. For the
next two hours,
Dundee
traveled quickly north and then south
along Blue Creek. When we
left him, he still had not reunited with another animal.
Dundee
traveled north into
Lake George
on
05/26/06
and then quickly back to
Lake
Dexter
the following day.
Dundee
was observed socializing with another
manatee on
05/30/06
in
Lake
Dexter
.
He moved north again into
Lake George
and has observed with six animal on
06/05/06
.
7/6/06:
Dundee
has been utilizing the
Lake
Woodruff
area throughout
June. He has been seen routinely with other manatees and has been
observed nibbling on floating vegetation.
We still have not seen him feeding intensely but we are seeing more
frequent small feeding bouts.
10/19/06:
Dundee
has utilized primarily the Lake Woodruff/Lake
Dexter area of the
St. Johns River
from June to October with several trips into
Norris
Dead
River
and one quick trip to the oxbow near
St. Francis River
. He has been observed feeding on
occasion but routinely has been with other manatees socializing.
On
9/19/06
,
Dundee
was observed pacing, a behavior we have not
documented him doing before. This
behavior was not seen for the next three days but he was observed alone
and avoided our boat’s approaches to obtain a body condition
observation. On
9/26/06
,
Dundee
was found entangled in a large mass of
coontail/hydrilla in
Lake
Woodruff
(about the size of a small car).
He could not move so getting most of the vegetation unwrapped from
his tether was somewhat successful. Once an amount the size of a 55 gallon
drum still remained around the tether,
Dundee
was able to freely move around and avoided any
further contact.
Dundee
was noted to have a good body condition and no
new scars could be detected at this time.
The crew returned the next day to continue the removal of the
debris from his tether but found the tether had broke at the weak link.
A decision was made to not retag
Dundee
at this time due to the further entanglement
potential which might result in the loss of his belt.
The vegetation overgrowth in
Lake
Woodruff
has been so extensive you are guaranteed to
clog your engine up with vegetation multiple times while trying to track
in the area. We decided that
if he moved out of the area we would retag him but until then, we would
just keep track of him using his VHF belt.
This plan worked wonderfully until
10/9/06
when we were not able to relocate him.
Kat Frisch from
FWC
flew on
10/17/06
to help relocate
Dundee
by tracking by air but unfortunately she was
not able to pick up a signal. We
will continue to search and possibly put another plane up in a couple of
weeks to research the area just before his scheduled health assessment.
11/11/06:
Dundee
was resighted at Blue Spring with twelve
animals on
10/26/06
. He
was very active according to Wayne Hartley and most of the other animals
were mother/calf pairs.
Dundee
was again seen on
11/05/06
but he quickly swam in and out of the spring
with one other animal.
Dundee
was again seen on
11/08/06
in Blue Spring and retagging was attempted but
not successful because he was pacing in the boil.
Dundee
was still at the spring boil on
11/09/06
and when the swimmer got into the area, he
immediately began to leave.
Dundee
was eventually retagged after he swam down
half of the run and had gotten distracted by a passing female.
His
belt was very loose and the antenna was missing on the VHF unit of the
belt. He had one previously seen scar pattern which
was almost healed and another pattern in the process of healing.
From a surface view, he was thin with a few longitudinal folds
apparent when he rolled along his lower abdomen, indicative he had not
been feeding in a few days. No
ribs were apparent, no peanut shape head, no concavity of the belly, and
upper abdomen was slightly round from an underwater view.
I would body score him as a 2+ (sorry have to use the plus
minus here). We decided to
try and capture
Dundee
for his health assessment on Thursday after
Turtle’s health assessment but since we could not get him out of the
spring run the capture was canceled.
Behaviorally, he was not lethargic but very active and responsive
to swimmers and other animals near him.
Dundee
was still in the spring run as of
11/11/06
and had been noted pacing in the boil most of
the time. Wayne Hartley said
he appeared from a surface view to now have longitudinal folds along his
entire abdomen and was very repetitive in his pacing behavior.
We are hoping to conduct a health assessment on him this upcoming
week.
11/20/06:
Dundee's health assessment will be
tomorrow and there is a chance he might be brought back into captivity
due to poor body condition going into winter. He has been at
Blue Spring since 11/08/06 and has only left the run for a
total of one hour according to GPS locations. Dundee has
longitudinal folds along his entire abdomen with a few vertical folds
apparent from time to time. He looks similar to the condition Mo
was in last year when we "tried" to bring him back into
captivity. The difference between Mo and Dundee's condition is
that Mo was periodically going out to feed and eventually increased
his feeding behavior. For Dundee, we have not seen any feeding
behavior in since 11/09/06. Behaviorally, Dundee is still
very active--chasing the females around the run and pacing at the boil
and swim area. Will send updates tomorrow after his capture.
11/21/06:
Dundee
was observed pacing and socializing on
11/21/06
in Blue Spring near the swim area.
Approximately 127 wild animals were in the Blue Spring run
during the AM and were minimally affected by our capture efforts.
Dundee
was captured by herding him into a land set net and was then placed on
the capture boat and slowly motor transported to the beach and
assessed. He was
very responsive during the capture but was unfortunately returned to
Lowry Park Zoo due to poor body condition.
Blood,
morphometrics, ultrasound, weight and fecal were obtained at Lowry
Park Zoo. Dr. Dave Murphy
gave
Dundee
an overall condition of poor with a body score of 2.
He had lost 555 lbs or 34% of his weight since his release on
02/21/06
. His belly had
longitudinal folds along his entire abdomen with a few minor vertical
folds. His flippers were
also pale gray, almost white in appearance.
Weight
Straight Body Length
02/21/06
1615 lbs
318 cm
05/25/06
1300 lbs
----
11/21/06
1060 lbs
310 cm
Ultrasound
readings showed large decreases across the board.
Even though the back fat readings were very close to the normal
value scale, we have noted that most of our rehabilitated animal in
the
St. Johns
usually have much higher fat storage readings just before winter.
Girth measurements also decreased across the board and were
still considered above normal. But
Dundee
is over 300cm long and readings for that size of an animal are usually
above normal.
Dr.
Murphy reported that once
Dundee
was in the water at Lowry Park Zoo he exhibited the same pacing
behavior as when he was in Blue Spring.
He was later introduced to another animal with normal social
behavior introductions. He
was actively feeding from a bottom feeder by the afternoon.
Thank
you to the capture crew from
FWC
, Lowry Park Zoo,
Blue
Spring
State Park
and WT volunteers for making this rescue happen.
The MRP would like to especially thank the staff of
Blue
Spring
State Park
for all their extra effort in keeping an eye on
Dundee
during the past few weeks and for allowing us to rescue him from the
spring run on such a cold day with so many other animals in the area.
2/25/07:
Has not moved out of Blue Spring during our
visual observations or according to the GPS readings. But he
was very social during our observation periods.