Florida police were not afraid to get wet to save the life of an exhausted manatee, who was struggling to stay on the surface to breathe, keeping his head above water for two long hours.
“This manatee is going to die right in front of us and I’m not going to let that happen! We docked the boat, I took off my gear and got back in the water,” said Officer Jill Constant, according to a post from the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office on Facebook.
In images accompanying the post, the 2,000-pound marine mammal can be seen cradled in the arms of two officers near a dock in Florida’s Shell Key Preserve.
According to information from the police force, shared by the “New York Post” on Thursday, the exhausted manatee, who was trying to reach a beach, had ended up giving up, letting himself float and trying somehow to breathe.
It was then that the two officers of the unit in charge of the marine and terrestrial environment would have jumped into the water to assist him.
The mammal could have suffered from starvation or toxins, two possible results of harmful algal blooms, also known as “red tide”, according to the American media.
At the same time, Florida waters would also experience a severe decrease in its production of seagrass, consumed by this mammal, due to environmental destruction.
The law in Florida prohibits approaching or feeding manatees, whose population has been experiencing a heavy decline in recent years, added the “New York Post”.