Thursday, January 15, 2004

It's All About Palma Sola:
From the good folks at WildTracks-

Palma Sola was behaviorally doing well in the wild but was not eating enough food to keep up with his growing body. During his last health assessment conducted in mid-December, he did not have sufficient weight on him, in our opinion, to safely last him through the winter season. The decision was made by field staff, veterinarian staff with multi agency input to pull him back into captivity, put weight back on him then re-release him towards the end of winter. He did return to his release site at Warm Mineral Springs so he passed the last test of knowing where to go for warm water, but like I said earlier, the weight issue was too close for our comfort.

He is currently packing on the weight fast at Lowry and we hope to put him out again in the next month. Please feel free to contact me if you have any additional concerns or questions.

Palma's my manatee in Florida. I "met" Palma when he was staying with a manatee named Snooty at the Bradenton museum- they released him in the Charlotte harbor and I have been following him ever since until he disappeared from the map and I wrote to them for an update.

I hope he makes it. A lot of the manatees they have previously treated are now dead or have disappeared.