Cannonballing Manatees Is Not Cool

It’s been all over the news today about three stupid boys who posted a video of themselves jumping off a dock in Cocoa Beach and performing a Cannonball on top of some manatees swimming in the Indian River, which might seem like harmless fun to some but manatees are an endangered species with very strict rules of engagement here in Florida. They probably thought it was one big joke when they posted the video but the Federal government is not laughing, now all three boys are being investigated and there could be charges and fines levied against them if they are convicted. The penalty for harassing or harming manatees is up to a year in jail and up to $100,000 in fines, a pretty harsh sentence for what these boys considered some harmless fun. Now I will be the first to say that cannonballing manatees is not cool at all, the poor things have been abused so much over the years that we should do our best to leave them alone. However in this instance I do think the federal government is overreacting to this incident if in fact the boys are charged, from what I see in the video it doesn’t look like the manatees were harmed in any way. However this should prove as a stern warning to everyone in the world to not mess with our manatees, the rules that are in place are there for a reason. Do a search on google and you will see the heartbreaking damage motorboats have done to these creatures over the years, it got so bad that when I was kid back in the 70s you never saw manatees in the wild. In fact I’m pretty sure I never saw a wild manatee until I was an adult, but now you can spot them riding down places like the Wakulla River quite often. I remember the first time I saw a manatee was when I was a little kid visiting the Zoo in Albany Georgia, this was their old zoo and the conditions the animals were kept in were horrible. They had a swimming pool with what they called the “sea cow” and it just sat there motionless, the pool was so small that the manatee wasn’t even able to turn around so it just sat there in misery. We heard soon after that visit from our relatives that the manatee had died, they also had an elephant that was chained up that was a sad sight to see. It wasn’t long after that they opened up a new zoo in Albany with better conditions from what I heard, but I never visited it so I can’t testify as to whether that is true. Anyways the lesson here is leave our Manatees alone!