A pilot study of the extralimital West Indian Manatee population in Mobile Bay, AL

Project Leader: Dr. Ruth Carmichael

Project Details

Increased awareness of the importance of fringe habitats such as Mobile Bay has prompted demand for studies to guide development of management programs outside areas covered under the Florida Manatee Recovery Program (to date, the only approved guidance document to protect manatees as a federally listed Endangered Species in the continental U.S.; USFWS 2001). In accordance with this need, the objective of this project is to determine when and how extralimital manatees use habitat in Mobile Bay by.

This study will include aerial and ground surveys of manatees in Mobile Bay and research to determine what manatees eat while in the Bay. The project, funded by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Mobile Bay National Estuary Program, is a collaboration between Dauphin Island Sea lab and researchers at Sea 2 Shore Alliance in Florida.