Manatee sighted in Dennis
By Martin Finucane, Globe Staff
The manatee who has been visiting Cape Cod for an off-season vacation has been sighted again. Since Sunday, he’s been visiting the waters off of Dennis, said Chris Cutter, a spokesman for the International Fund for Animal Welfare.
Cutter said he went out in a boat this afternoon with the Dennis harbormaster, who has been keeping an eye on the animal, to look at the unusual tourist.
He said the manatee appears to have a problem with one of his eyes and there’s a chunk missing from one of his flippers “so he’s been beat up a little bit. ... Other than that, he looks healthy.”
The organization will continue to keep an eye on the animal, he said, hoping that it decides to head for warmer waters on its own.
“If he continues to hang around, we’ll mobilize some kind of rescue plan and get him down to Florida,” he said.
The manatee has been sighted previously in waters off Cape Cod and southeastern Massachusetts. A sighting was reported Friday at Gray’s Beach in Yarmouth.
The Florida manatee typically is found in Florida and southeastern Georgia. They cannot survive very long in water below 68 degrees Fahrenheit, according to the US Fish and Wildlife Service.
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