MANATEE SPOTTED IN APPOMATTOX RIVER

The Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries sent an official to the Appomattox River, a major tributary to the James River, on Monday, August 12 to confirm a manatee sighting in Colonial Heights, publicized by a video posted online one day prior.

Public domain photo.

    It was a manatee; but this occurrence is not altogether unheard of.  Though manatees traditionally reside in the warm coastal waters of Florida, they have been documented traveling north along the Atlantic Coast as abnormally warm waters permit.

    Biologists intend to allow nature to take its course on the animal.  For when the weather begins tapering into fall, cooling waters will call the manatee back south, into its warm wintering waters.