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Mobile Bay provides an excellent location to study manatees in fringe habitats.  The Bay provides habitat and food resources for manatees and has a history of manatee sightings, with an increased numbers of sightings through time.  Boating and changes in water quality potentially threaten manatees and their habitat and food resources in Mobile Bay.  Studies in Mobile Bay will inform manatee conservation, management, and recovery efforts throughout the region.  This study will build on DISL's collaborative pilot study of manatees in Mobile Bay by extending a collaboration with Wildlife Trust in Florida and continuing to operate the Mobile Manatees Sighting Network.

Manatee surfacing in Cotton Bayou, near Perdido Pass, McDonald Family, 2008

This expanded study will further integrate our primary research with public education and outreach activities to:

• Increase public awareness of the presence of manatees in Mobile bay and
• Enhance public participation in conservation and management activities.

These studies will include aerial and ground surveys of manatees in Mobile Bay and surrounding waters along with research to determine what manatees eat while in the Bay. The projects, funded by the Alabama Division of Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Mobile Bay National Estuary Program, are a collaboration between Dauphin Island Sea lab and researchers at Wildlife Trust in Florida.

For more information and to report a sighting please visit http://manatee.disl.org