BREAKING: Miami Seaquarium to Transfer Manatees Owing to Health Issues

Update published December 1, 2:25 p.m.: A source with knowledge about the situation informs New Times that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) will help remove and transport three manatees from the Miami Seaquarium to a different Manatee Rescue & Rehabilitation Partnership facility owing to "issues related to their care."

The source spoke on condition that their name not be published because they are not authorized to comment about the matter at this time.

Two of the manatees are elderly and all three are said to be experiencing health issues. FWS is said to be leading the transport effort at the request of the Seaquarium.

Original story:

As outcry grows from animal rights activists citing captive animals' poor living conditions at Miami Seaquarium, the push to transport Romeo and Juliet, manatees confined to the park for more than six decades, is gaining traction.

Activists vying for Romeo and Juliet's release have implored the park to move the manatees before the end of the year. The campaign follows furor over a viral video posted by animal rights group UrgentSeas, which shows Romeo, believed to be 67 years old, swimming alone in a small pool at the park.

The aerial footage not only triggered a stern statement from the Save the Manatee Club but also drew condemnation from legendary surfer Kelly Slater and Barstool Sports owner Dave Portnoy. Those calling for Romeo's removal have pleaded that the manatee be spared the same fate suffered by Lolita, an orca who died at Miami Seaquarium after spending nearly her entire life in a cramped tank at the park.

A Change.org petition titled "Shut Down Miami Seaquarium and Release Romeo" and another called "Set Free Romeo" have garnered more than 17,000 and 43,000 signatures, respectively, with more supporters piling on hour by hour.

While calling for the park's closure, animal rights group PETA says that as a long-term captive manatee, the elderly Romeo is not a candidate for release into open waters.

"PETA has long pushed for the Seaquarium to shut down and send all the animals there — including Romeo, who can’t be released in the wild — to reputable sanctuaries where they could receive the care they desperately need, outside a tank, and we’re looking forward to learning more about the plan for these manatees," PETA spokesperson David Perle tells New Times.

Local10 reported this week that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) is working with "an experienced team of manatee rescue and rehabilitation experts to assist with the transport effort of manatees from Miami Seaquarium."

Romeo was among the first manatees brought to the facility in the 1950s as part of its conservation program, which began in 1955 with the rescue of a three-week-old injured manatee named Mamie. Romeo and his long-time mate, Juliet, were the first manatees in the U.S. to conceive offspring while under human care, according to the Seaquarium. As part of the park's now-halted breeding program, Romeo produced several calves, some of whom were successfully released into the wild.

The park is one of five Florida facilities authorized by FWS as a manatee "acute care facility" under an umbrella cooperative called the Manatee Rescue & Rehabilitation Partnership (MRP), whose members rescue, rehabilitate, and release Florida manatees. Four other institutions, two in Florida and two in Ohio, are designated as "secondary holding facilities," where manatees may await release once they've been medically stabilized.

Under its previous owner Wometco, which sold the park to Palace Entertainment in 2014, the Seaquarium veterinary staff earned a reputation in the conservation community for working long hours to nurse injured and ailing sea cows back to health.

But according to PETA, for a period of time following the death of an emaciated manatee named Snuggles in the fall of 2021, the agency barred the park from receiving rescued manatees and demoted it to "holding facility" status. At FWS' request, the Seaquarium transferred some of its remaining dozen manatees to other facilities more capable of caring for them, PETA says.

Discussions about transporting Romeo, Juliet, and a third manatee out of the Seaquarium ramped up between stakeholders this past September, amusement park news site ThemedReality reported.

"We know these animals' behavior, and it's really sad to see what they've been going through."

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Magdalena Rodriguez, a veterinarian who began working at the Seaquarium in 1997, tells New Times Romeo was a tender surrogate and teacher to younger manatees in the rescue program. Rodriguez helped manage the program until her firing from the Seaquarium in June 2021 amid internal conflict over her objections to a reduction in animals' diets.

Rodriguez says Romeo would help young, rescued sea cows adapt to the seasons and eat vegetation. She recalls that he once appeared to assist a young manatee through a flume, a tube-like structure used to herd them away from pools during maintenance.

"Romeo was very social," Rodriguez says. "A young manatee was too scared to go all the way through the flume. Romeo turned around and went back to the pool, put his pads around him, and gently pushed him through the flume. He kept going back through to help the young manatee."

Large marine mammals have remained at the Seaquarium even as the park's tank conditions deteriorated over the years, as was evident in the late Lolita's crumbling pool. The stadium where the whale had jumped and twirled for audiences since the 1970s was shut down after Miami-Dade County issued it an unsafe structure notice in August 2021, a few months before Dolphin Co., a global marine park company, acquired the Seaquarium. 

Not long before Lolita's death in August 2023 following a medical procedure, inspectors with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) cited the park over manatees' living conditions, understaffing, and poor tank maintenance. Despite the fact that manatees are semi-social animals who function better — both medically and psychologically — when housed in pairs or groups, Romeo had been alone since the spring of 2023, according to the report.

The report notes that while there have been numerous attempts to find Romeo another tank mate, it was ultimately determined that the facility did not meet the requirements to receive another animal.

"Marine mammals, whenever known to be primarily social in the wild, must be housed in their primary enclosure with at least one compatible animal of the same or biologically related species," the report states.

USDA inspectors found that because the Seaquarium did not own scales that could be used routinely at all enclosures, it hadn't weighed three adult manatees in more than five years. The report also recounted instances where the park failed to provide manatees proper protection from weather and direct sunlight, including a lapse last spring when an overhead tarp was removed from a manatee’s enclosure for several weeks at a time, leaving it exposed to constant and direct sunlight, according to the USDA.

"We know these animals' behavior and it's really sad to see what they've been going through," Rodriguez says. "Those tight circles Romeo's been swimming in are not a good sign."

"This park is deteriorating, yet there are still animals," she says. She says of Romeo's tank, "Look at that pool, look at the paint."

A Miami Seaquarium spokesperson did not respond to New Times' request for comment, including questions about its status as a care facility for manatees and how many of its manatees have been successfully rescued, rehabilitated, and released to the wild.

In response to a previous federal inspection report citing it for poor tank conditions and animal welfare issues, the park said it stood by the quality of its animal care and had a track record of successful inspections.

"Our veterinarians and animal care specialists are fully dedicated to delivering the best care to all of our animals," the Seaquarium said after a 2021 USDA report made national headlines.

Federal authorities are considering whether to once again designate the West Indian manatee, which includes the Florida population, as an endangered species, after more than 1,100 manatees perished in 2021, marking the species' highest Florida death toll recorded in a year. The die-off was deemed an "unusual mortality event," a rare designation that demands immediate attention under the federal Marine Mammal Protection Act. The spike in deaths of the iconic, thousand-pound mammals was attributed to the drastic loss of their primary food source, seagrass.

Rodriguez notes that the two-year survival rate for manatees released after being in long-term care is low in part because the animals tend to lack survival skills and essential social behaviors following life in captivity. The veterinarian, who cared for Romeo for more than two decades, says if Romeo is transported to an alternate facility, his tank mate should be carefully selected to be compatible with him in his old age. 

She maintains, however, that Romeo could buck the statistics and fend for himself if released into the wild.

"Romeo showed social tendencies and is actually a teacher," Rodriguez says. "Romeo came in as a sub-adult...and he'd already learned survival behavior, which he continued to exhibit at Seaquarium."

"So many manatees have gone through the rescue program," she says, "Romeo might know some manatees out there in the wild."