Manatee Watch: Dennis Dies

Yesterday, we were hopeful that Dennis the manatee could get happy and healthy after making it to Florida in a Penske moving truck. Turns out that wasn't the case, as Dennis died soon after a 27-hour journey to Orlando's SeaWorld. During the trip, workers were able to raise his body temperature 16 degrees, still eight degrees short of normal, but it wasn't quite enough. Let's hope we can prevent more poor manatees from getting off course and entering Massachusetts waters. And maybe next time--if there is a next time--an airplane, instead of Penske, should be our pick.

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way to fuck that up, massachusetts.
not surprised.

Aww, don't blame Mass. I lived in Florida for a long time and was able to spend time at the SeaWorld facility. It's really hard to bring those huge animals back from hypothermia. They're extremely fragile creatures.

At least they tried; otherwise he would be dead anyway. Who knows how it would have responded to altitude--and how do you transport an 800-lb sea creature by air? What kind of floating pool would that require?

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I'm admittedly not current on manatee biology. But, couldn't the New England Aquarium have helped this poor thing? I mean, isn't a manatee part of the whole water creature realm?

I feel bad for the manatee. I'm sure everyone did what they could.

sadly i think it was preemptive revenge against the Rays.

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