Happy Birthday, Snooty

Today was Snooty's 60th birthday. Snooty, our resident manatee resides at the Parker Aquarium in the South Florida Museum in Bradenton. As I mentioned the other day in my Project Black post, the county I reside in is Manatee County. Snooty came to live here in 1949 when he was brought to Bradenton to be part of our yearly DeSoto Celebration. For a while he was called Baby Snoots, and then when he was a baby no longer, Snooty became his moniker.

For many years he lived in a small tank with not a lot of room for movement; it was more like a big swimming pool. Now he has a lovely tank. I don't remember how many gallons it is, but it is well-suited for him. From time to time he has companions in the tank. Lowry Park Zoo has a rehab facilities for manatees that have been injured by boat propellers, and sometimes they have more than they can handle, so the aquarium here houses some until they can be released back into the wild.

When I arrived at noon, this docent was telling the large crowd that had gathered a lot of facts and figures about Snooty. He was being fed while she was talking, and as you can see, the paparazzi was there. Snooty eats around 70 pounds of lettuce a day. Today since it was his birthday, he was going to given some strawberries for a treat. The other manatees are not hand-fed. Their food is tossed into the tank. The lady said that they must think that their food falls from the sky.

Our local newspaper had an article about Snooty yesterday. If you go here, you can see a photo of Snooty's face. He really is a cute guy. There is also a video of him and his birthday.

For more animal photos, visit Carmi's blog. He is sponsoring a photo theme of animals this week.

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A couple of people have commented that they didn't realize that manatees lived so long. I don't actually know if they do in the wild. Perhaps now they tag manatees as they release them to follow up. They are interesting creatures. There are places in Florida, one place I know for sure, where you can swim with them. SeaWorld houses quite a few, and we have our Snooty here in Bradenton.