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Mosquito Lagoon |
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New Smyrna Beach |
| Mammals of Mosquito Lagoon |
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Manatees… The SLOWEST Mammals of Mosquito
Lagoon Hundreds of years ago sailors often would mistake Manatees for mermaids. West Indian Manatees are the slowest mammals of Mosquito Lagoon and are one of the world’s most endangered animals so it is awesome to see one. Manatees are gentle creatures and spend most of their days eating and traveling. They eat between 20 and 60 pounds of plants and sea grass every day. Manatees don’t have teeth, but they do have front molars. They have surprisingly good eyesight. We don’t know if Manatees actually need fresh or salt water, but they seem to like fresh better. They can be found in shallow, slow-moving rivers, saltwater bays, canals, and coastal areas, particularly where you would find sea grass beds or freshwater vegetation. Manatees may also be found in the coastal and inland waterways of Central America and along the northern coast of South America. West Indian Manatees originated in the Caribbean. Florida is considered to be their northernmost territory. It became possible for more of them to survive the winters here after power plants were built in Florida which increase the water temperatures around them. Manatees also spend their winters in natural springs, like Blue Springs near Deland, Florida, and they make their ways to the coastal waterways, including Mosquito Lagoon, for spring, summer and fall. Manatees will need to come up for a breath about every four minutes. When Manatees come up for air, it may sound like a snort. They mostly spend time resting submerged at the bottom or just below the surface of the water. When they are using a great deal of energy, they may surface to breathe as often as every 30 seconds, but when resting, Manatees have been known to stay submerged for up to 20 minutes. Manatees usually swim about three to five miles per hour, but they can swim up to 20 miles per hour in short bursts. Manatees give birth about every three years with gestation periods averaging a year. The calves nurse and are dependent on their mothers for about 2 and a half years. Twins are very rare. Capt. Karty Sills has been a fishing guide in Mosquito Lagoon since 1992. He has seen the football sized newborns that even he acknowledges are extremely cute versions of the adult Manatees. The Manatee's closest relative is the elephant. The West Indian Manatee is related to the West African Manatee, the Amazonian Manatee, the Dugong, and Steller's Sea Cow, which was hunted to extinction in 1768. As with wild animal populations, a certain percentage of manatee deaths are attributed to natural causes such as cold stress, gastrointestinal disease, pneumonia, and other diseases. Additional fatalities are from human-related causes with include collisions with watercraft; being crushed and drowned in canal locks and flood control structures; ingestion of fish hooks, litter, and monofilament line; and entanglement in crab trap lines. Ultimately, loss of habitat and rapidly declining water quality due to the spraying of fertilizer and pesticides are the most serious threats facing the Manatees today.
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Dolphins… The OTHER Mammals of Mosquito Lagoon
Tursiops truncatus Humans have a lot in common with dolphins. They form bonds between individuals that may last a lifetime. Each dolphin has a dorsal fin that is as distinctive as a person's face. The skin of the dolphin is extremely delicate and easily injured just like human skin. Dolphins have been observed physically supporting sick or dying pod members. Dolphins can be quite aggressive, even brutal and have been known to abuse weaker members of their pod. Watching dolphins is a rewarding experience for humans. Dolphins are very playful and fast learners. They play games with bubbles they make. You are likely to see one playing or chasing fish. Wild dolphins are most beautiful and have a presence of their own. They are great teachers, reminding us to regain our playfulness and joy. Dolphins live between 40 and 50 years. In the wild, dolphins can live to be 50 years old, although the average age is 17 years. A recent study compared the endurance of dolphins in captivity from 1940 through 1992. It found no significant difference between the captive population and the Sarasota Bay population. The life expectancy for the captive population was reported to be 17.4 years. However in captivity, dolphins have reached ages over 40 years. Studies indicate that dolphin vocalizations are complex enough to support some form of language. Dolphins have large brains and, like the great apes, they can learn to understand complicated, language-like commands and a structured language. Dolphins mostly communicate by sounds like whistles or pulsed sounds, which sound like squawks, barks, or rasps. Dolphins and other toothed whales produce high pitched clicks. When these clicks strike an object, some of the sound echoes back to the sender. By listening to the echo and calculating the time it took before the echo came back, the dolphin can determine how far away it is from the object and its’ size. This is called sonar or echolocation. Dolphins also communicate through body posturing and jaw popping. They use body language like breaching. The dolphin will jump and fall back into the water with a loud splash. They will also slap their flipper or tail on the water surface. Dolphins have a blowhole on top of their heads. It is a flap that they can open and close to breathe. Bottlenose dolphins can go for thirty minutes between breaths. Taking a breath takes about 0.3 second. The deeper the dolphin dives, the higher the pressure and the more often he will have to surface to breath. Dolphins have to be conscious to breathe and cannot go into a full deep sleep. They let one half of their brain sleep at a time. EEG studies on dolphins have determined that the halves of a dolphin’s brain take turns sleeping. Dolphins sleep about 8 hours day. REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep has been recorded in dolphins, but only very rarely.
Some dolphin
species can swim up to 25 miles an hour for long periods.
That equals more than three times faster than the fastest
human swimmers. Dolphins can jump as high as 20 feet. Most dolphins live in ocean water which is too salty for them to swallow. If dolphins drank sea water, they would use more water trying to get rid of the salt than they had consumed in the first place. Dolphins get most of their water from their diet of fish and squid. When they burn fat, water is released. Also their kidneys are adapted to retaining water. Even though they live in water, they have no direct source of drinkable water. Dolphins have two stomachs. One is for storing food and one is for digesting it. In a single day an adult dolphin may consume 30 pounds of fish or more. Dolphins have 100 teeth in their mouths but swallow their fish whole. Their teeth are used for grasping their prey. Bottlenose dolphins eat many kinds of fish, including mullet, mackerel, herring, cod, and squid. Capt. Karty Sills has been a fishing guide in Mosquito Lagoon since 1992. Over the years he has observed the local Bottlenose population demonstrate their ability to adapt to their surroundings and modify their feeding habits. The dolphins now tend to follow the boats that they see out there every day and they learn which boats are successful. When releasing fish, we must act diligently to prevent our released fish from turning into a lazy lunch for a smart dolphin. Dolphins have very sensitive retinas that efficiently gather light so they can see as well beneath the water as above it. They have a very limited sense of smell.
Females start
to give birth at 8 to 10 years old and may produce one calf
every 2-3 years. The calf is born in the water, either head
or tail first, with the aid of another dolphin. The helper
can be male or female and is also the only dolphin that will
be allowed near the calf.
The mother
nurses her infant by squirting the milk so the calf doesn’t
suck in seawater. When a solo whale or dolphin beaches itself, it usually is extremely sick and exhausted. There are a number of theories that try to explain the occurrence of groups of dolphins and whales stranding themselves on the beach but no theory can explain all of them. In some highly social species, members may follow a sick leader. Deep water animals are the species that most often beach in groups. Sonar does not represent sloping sandy beach properly. They detect it only when they are almost stranded and they panic. Dolphins and whales and may be navigating by the earth's magnetic field and could be misled onto beaches by field disturbances. There is evidence to suggest that when under severe stress or in panic, the dolphins or whales may revert to the behavior of their early ancestors and run towards shore to find safety. You may encounter wild dolphins when swimming, boating or snorkeling in certain areas. Remember that in the United States it is illegal to directly approach dolphins. If the dolphins come to you and choose to interact, that is allowed. It is illegal in the US to feed the dolphins, and is highly undesirable, because it changes the dolphins' behavior.
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Full Time Captain
Capt. Karty Sills |
Fishing Packages
Available Private & Multi-Boat Charters |
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