A Bird's Eye View Location: Crystal River, Florida Day 8 by Karen Brown

Well, that is what I thought,too. But Ms. Joyce Kleen said that to find her this morning we would have to meet her at the airport! That's because one of her jobs is to count the manatees every week. And she does that from a small airplane. (Another woman flies the airplane.) Joyce takes her notebook with her and makes a note of every manatee that she sees. She spends about 2 hours up there flying all over Citrus County, Florida and is very careful to count every manatee. (Citrus County is where Crystal River is located.)

When she comes back down she goes back to her office at the Fish and Wildlife Office. She has a computer in her office and she puts her data in the computer.

I asked her why she loves manatees so much. She said it was because they are so curious. One of her jobs as a wildlife biologist is to do a vegetation survey in Crystal River. She goes out on a small boat with another biologist. Their job is to look at the different types of fresh water plants that are in the river. She uses a long pole that measures how deep the water is where the plants are. She said that sometimes when she sticks that pole in the water a manatee will come and rub up against the pole. The manatee is trying to figure out what it is and what she is doing with it. (Or maybe it is just looking for a new way to get its back scratched!)

Joyce says that it is a wonderful experience to be in the water with manatees. She encourages all of you to someday come to Florida to visit the manatees. She feels that the more people get to know and interact with these endangered animals, the more they will want to protect them.

She told us that it is OK to touch and scratch and pet a manatee as long as it comes up to you. But it is not nice to chase a manatee, or separate a mother and her calf, or to try to wake up a sleeping manatee, or to poke a manatee, or to try to ride one. In fact, not only are these things not nice, they are against the law!

One way kids can help protect manatees is if you see someone bothering a manatee you can tell them to stop and then tell your parents. Also, if someone is driving a motorboat too fast in an area where manatees live, you can tell them not to do that.

Wildlife biologist Ms. Joyce Kleen's aerial office preparing to take-off. (If you look carefully you can see Joyce waving at you just inside the passenger door.)

Ms. Kleen ready to do her weekly aerial manatee survey. (I guess Crystal River really does have "kleen" air.)

Kings Bay, Crystal River. (Can you find the locations from our Crystal River map, in "Teacher's Link", in the aerial photo?)

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