When a manatee is sighted, the boat is stopped immediately. The boat operator then drifts or poles to within 100 m of the animal. IF the manatee is not disturbed by our presence, and IF conditions warrant, the researcher enters the water and slowly snorkels towards the manatee. Photographs are taken according to the Florida Manatee Individual Photo-identification System protocol (Beck and Reid 1995). Ideally, we want to photograph the entire animal: dorsal, ventral, and both lateral sides, plus the paddle and the face. The first photograph in this series captures the face, the right lateral, and the anterior dorsal areas. The second photograph captures the posterior dorsal area.
Previous research by Greg Smith indicates that many manatees can be identified by nicks around the edges of the tail paddle. A similar method is used to identify bottlenose dolphins via nicks on their dorsal fins. Although this animal has no remarkable nicks out of the paddle, it does have 3 barnacles which can be used for short term identification (hours - days). Barnacles, however, fall off when the manatee enters fresh water - therefore we cannot rely on them for long term identification. Similarly, the scar like patterns on this animal are actually algae and can only be used in the very short term.
