Manatees have escaped the cold in Satellite Beach canals since the city’s canals were dug, and they’ve always had an avid audience.
With the advent of social media, the number of manatee watchers has grown exponentially. It’s not uncommon to find more than 100 people watching the sea cows from the canal banks.
The situation has gotten so bad that city officials had to stabilize the shoreline on a canal near Desoto Parkway and South Patrick Drive where watchers climb down the bank to illegally feed the gentle giants.
The canal is the border between Satellite Beach and Indian Harbour Beach. It has a sea wall on the south shore, which is owned by Indian Harbour Beach, but the Satellite Beach shore is grass and therefore susceptible to erosion.
To counteract damage from the foot traffic, the Satellite side of the canal has been reinforced as part of a larger project to build and landscape a stormwater pond recently completed nearby on Desoto Parkway.
The shoreline work, which added coquina rock, was made a priority in the overall stormwater project. It was completed by a city-imposed November deadline put in place because city officials knew it was only a matter of time before the first cold snap would attract the sea cows to the warm water. Work has to pause while the manatees are present.
Manatee watching “has always been something that has happened, but with Facebook and Instagram, social media has made it much worse. It’s become a nuisance with people parking in yards and kids walking across streets without watching.
Because manatees eat grass, and people want to feed them, it is certainly eroding the shoreline,’’ said Satellite Beach Public Works Director Allen Potter.
Two main rules for manatee-watchers include don’t ever touch one and do not feed them lettuce (which they like but which is not as nutritious as aquatic vegetation that they normally forage on), he said.
Manatee viewing is allowed, Potter said, but within reason.
“We don’t want this to be a (tourist) destination,’’ Potter said.