JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Visitors who want an up-close look at the manatees being cared for at the Jacksonville Zoo and Botanical Gardens won’t have to travel far from the zoo’s new entrance to see them.
The newly finished $72 million J. Wayne and Delores Barr Weaver Manatee River habitat is part of the new VyStar SkyScape entrance way at the zoo.
The new Manatee River habitat is a 330,000-gallon, state-of-the-art critical care facility designed to rescue, rehabilitate, recover, and release Florida manatees as part of Florida’s statewide rescue and rehabilitation network.
It has a capacity of up to 20 manatees with features that allow the sea cows to travel easily from the river habitat exhibit to the rehab area.
Both will open to the public on Friday.
News4JAX got a behind-the-scenes look at the new habitat on Tuesday, and we’re taking you along on the tour to meet Alpine, Francesco, and Cullen, the first manatees in the new habitat.
Behind the scenes, zoo staff use a crane system to carefully lift rescued manatees into specialized medical pools.
“We will put the manatees in a stretcher and kind of shuffle them out towards the back of the truck,” said Derek Mock, interpretive education specialist at the zoo. “This is where they’re going to come first. Now we can see that full crane system that goes parallel over both pools so we can take them to the far pool if we need to, or we can drop them here at the first pool.”
Visitors entering through the new green gates will scan their tickets before heading down a set of stairs leading to Manatee River, where current residents — Alpine, Cullen and Francesco — can be seen swimming and eating lettuce.
“Oh they love it,” said Curtis Dvorak, known as the zoo’s Wildlife Wanderer. “They came out and now they’re looking at the gate into this one. They’re swimming up to the gate looking like, ‘Oh, can we go over there?’”
Dvorak said staff affectionately call the animals “floating potatoes.”
Despite their gentle reputation and simple diet, manatees are the most expensive animals to feed at the zoo. They consume 10% to 15% of their body weight daily, amounting to hundreds of pounds of lettuce.
The zoo partners closely with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission to rescue injured animals. The agency’s Northeast Field Lab operates at the zoo and receives calls from the public through its hotline when manatees are in distress.
“We work very closely with FWC,” said Ashley Nelson, a manatee care specialist. “They’ll receive calls from the public through their hotline. They inform us if they need help going out to rescue manatees.”
Nelson said most of the injuries treated at the facility are caused by human activity.
“Manatees don’t have really any natural predators,” she said. “So a lot of those illnesses and injuries that they come in with are unfortunately through interactions with humans, whether that’s boats, watercraft injuries, entrapment in canals and culverts, and things like red tide due to pollution.”
Dvorak said the exhibit not only provides lifesaving care but also a chance for the public to better understand the threats manatees face.
“You see that boat strike on his back like that was our fault,” he said. “People ask, why should we care? Well, we should care. One, because it’s an iconic species in our ecosystem. But two, most of the dangers they face are human. If we have the ability to help them, why not?”
The zoo officially opens the new entrance and Manatee River habitat at 9 a.m. Friday. The first 10 groups to arrive will receive a complimentary behind-the-scenes tour of the facility, and the first 100 guests will receive a free manatee plush.
In addition to the new entrance and manatee exhibit, the multi-year renovations at the zoo promise a more modern, guest-friendly experience, with changes to pathways so visitors can make a continuous loop through exhibits without backtracking.
Jacksonville Zoo & Botanical Gardens is also nominated in USA Today’s Best Zoo competition, currently third in the standings. Voting continues through March 9 at jaxzoo.org/vote.