Four manatees were rescued from a pond at a Florida cemetery that the animals had gotten trapped in during and after Hurricane Helene.
The manatees swam into the Largo pond at the Serenity Funeral Home & Serenity Gardens Memorial Park while the area was flooded during the storm.
“We, a family that came in to visit one of their loved ones … saw that the manatees were there. … We found that there were five of them, and one is actually a little baby calf. So we’ve got a mom in there with her baby and some others,” Carrie Orozco, manager of the funeral home, told Tampa Bay Fox affiliate WTVT.
Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission personnel with people from ZooTampa, the Clearwater Marine Aquarium, the Bishop Museum of Science & Nature in Bradenton, and the University of Florida rescued two adult male and two adult female manatees from the pond, according to the Tampa Bay Times.
Due to the calf’s size, it’s possible it was able to swim from the pond, which is connected to the Intracoastal Waterway by Church Creek, back out to its natural habitat, FWC spokesman Jonathan Veach told the Tampa Bay paper.
Other manatees also got stranded due to the hurricane, with rescue efforts planned for one in Manatee County and another in the Jacksonville area, FWC spokeswoman Kelly Richmond said.
• Brad Matthews can be reached at bmatthews@washingtontimes.com.
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