A manatee found stranded on a beach in Kill Devil Hills on December first has died. The nearly 10-foot-long female was still alive when it was found in the surf by a woman walking along the Ocean Bay Boulevard access. The discovery was first reported by Outer Banks Today. It was the first documented live stranding on the North Carolina coast.
Volunteers and staff with the OBX Marine Mammal Stranding Network and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service responded. Arrangements were made for a box truck to take the manatee to a Florida facility for treatment. The responders planned to meet the team from the facility on the road to transfer the manatee.
“But when we started to move her she went into distress and died,” said Karen Clark, director at the N.C. Wildlife Commission’s Outer Banks Center for Wildlife Education. “The animal had likely washed up several hours earlier.”
There were no visible signs of trauma, but the manatee appeared to have been malnourished.
“She was very thin and had what we call a ‘peanut head’, because she was missing the usual fat stores we see around the neck area,” Clark added.
Manatees are well documented by scientists using photos and video so it’s likely the manatee will be able to be identified using the shape of its tail and scars.
“The remains will be taken to N.C. State University’s lab in Morehead City for a necropsy,” said Lisa Gatens, Collection Manager, Mammology, at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences. “After that It will be added to our Mammalogy Research Collection after going through a cleaning process. That means being buried in horse manure to anaerobically decompose any remaining flesh (composting), then washed with mild soapy water.”
The same process was used on the whale skeleton in the Museums’ main exhibit area.
“It won’t be in the collection for several months,” Gatens added.
Manatees are usually found in Florida with its warmer waters, but as ocean waters have warmed due to climate change, manatee sightings along the East Coast are becoming more common. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says the mammals have been spotted as far north as coastal Virginia during summer migration season.
Clark adds there have been no recent sightings around the Outer Banks, but a group of manatees was spotted in the fall in the Intracoastal Waterway near Morehead City.