INDIAN SHORES, Fla. — A video from Michael McCarthy’s drone exhibits a bunch of mating manatees referred to as an aggregation at Indian Shores Seaside.

It’s truly unlawful to the touch and even chase after the endangered creatures.

McCarthy factors out within the video that most individuals have been respectful, however not everybody.

“There have been loads of people who simply needed to contact them and chase them round,” he stated.

McCarthy, who owns See Via Canoe, typically seems for marine life to file together with his drone. However what he recorded on Could 7 will not be what he wished to search out.

Within the video, persons are touching the manatees and surrounding them.

In one other of his pictures, a person was practically run over by an enormous manatee that would weigh greater than a thousand kilos.

“It’s slightly shocking. However not unusual for issues like this to occur, stated Marie Filipek, senior animal care skilled at ZooTampa.

She spends a lot of her time within the zoo’s Manatee Essential Care Middle, rehabbing them from boat strikes or sickness with the hope of getting them again to the wild.

She stated folks want to offer manatees area.

“They’ll come nearer to shore. Often, it’s in mating present, so it is going to be a bunch of males and one feminine that they’re making an attempt to breed. So undoubtedly, in that case, you wish to give them their area and let nature do its factor. We don’t wish to intrude with that. We would like these animals populating as they’re an endangered species, so we don’t wish to intrude with that,” stated Filipek.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Fee stated to name them when you see folks harassing manatees, together with disturbing the herds.

Fines will be as much as $100,000 and you’ll even go to jail.

Michael stated he reported this encounter to FWC, however no phrase of something got here of it.

However within the video, he expressed concern over the crowds complicated the manatees as they tried to maneuver.

“They couldn’t actually go anyplace, although, as a result of the gang adopted them after they tried to maneuver up or down the seashore,” he stated.

As we’ve reported, manatee deaths have been alarmingly excessive in recent times.

FWC stated not less than 800 manatees died final 12 months and a file 1,100 died in 2021.

You’ll be able to name FWC at 800-404-FWCC to report any incidents or accidents.