Bulldog: holy crap, something uglier than I am!

Manatee: holy crap, something uglier than I am!

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That seems like an overreaction on the part of the manatees. I hope it doesn't rain, they would absolutely lose their shit.

Although I don't know the specifics here, and I understand that ignorance of the law is not a valid defense, it seems flat out insane to criminally prosecute the guy.

I give him the benefit of the doubt that they are telling the truth and this at least started by bailing rainwater out of a boat. That's a very normal activity, no reason to presume that any harm could come of it.

Then, first bucket gets tossed in and he sees that big splash. It's Florida, so there could be lots of potential explanations. It might be bigass catfish. It might be alligators. Could even be dolphins, depending on where they are in Florida. ...And, it might be manatees, although that probably wouldn't be the first thing I would think of.

So, big splash. I'd be surprised. My first reaction would be: "I wonder if it will happen again after another bucket." NOT "Oh dear, perhaps I am frightening some poor defenseless little creatures and should immediately cease what I'm doing." If I came the the conclusion that it was gators (which seems more likely/reasonable than manatees to me, although I don't live there), it would even stand to reason that frightening them off would be a good thing to do -- encourage them to move away from populated areas.

Given all that, it seems very unlikely to me that the dude had any malicious intent. If he knew they were manatees and knew that stressing them out like that could negatively impact their health, perhaps punishment would be in order. But if he thought they were anything else (fish / gators / whatever), or just plain didn't know, continuing to bail the boat in an attempt to get whatever they might be to swim away seems like a very reasonable thing to do.

Educating people that "hey, if you see something like this happening, it might be manatees and you should try to avoid stressing them out" seems like by far a better and more rational option than "throw the animal torturer in the slammer!"

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I thought I even saw feathers around 1:05. I do wonder what kind of injuries these are causing to the birds. I know it's not human maliciousness, but it's generally at this exact point that we should recognize it's going to be a problem and address it.

Anyone remember the manatee thing?
http://www.livescience.com/19639-manatee-hearing-boats.html

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=manatee+boat+injury

Ack, I want to hear more! One of those videos that you look at and go, cool it's an entire 5 minutes of Trekkie AND civil rights goodness -- then it's over in a blink. Should have been 15 minutes. Damn.

We really need to hear more about Tack-eh's "liberal" conversations with Roddenberry... My wife is a TNG fanatic (and Asian), so this might be the selling point I've been looking for to get her to watch the OG with me, which she doesn't consider serious enough scifi.

Also, on the subject of the "South" -- my family is from Florida/SC and I remember my mom freaking out because she worked in a building (circa 1988) with a colored's only bathroom. She had no idea that there were still relics of segregation in public places. I don't know how it survived THAT long, but when you live an hour away from the nearest grocery store, yet the manatee "preserve" (they didn't look very preserved, the majority of them covered from head to tail in propeller scars...) is less than five minutes away, you're bound to find things that escaped the flow of time. Trailers on blocks of cement, just resting on top of the white sand in a hurricane fuckland... How smart my ancestors were.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'woman, swimming, surprise visitor, screaming' to 'woman, swimming, surprise visitor, screaming, manatee' - edited by xxovercastxx

Manatee internal monologue:

"Duuuuuuh dum..."
"Duuuuuuh dum..."
"Duuuh dum..."
"Duhdum... duhdum...""
"DuhdumduhdumdumduhdumdumdumdumdumdumDAHDAHH!!!!"

OH THE HUGE MANATEE!

Upvote for the description!
Can I have Mellissa Parsons fired for being offensive to my eyeballs? Where do manatee's work anyway? I didn't know they even knew how to use cell phones. Impressive!
Go back to Elmore City and fight with Kevin Bacon, bee-ach!

arent manatees vegetarians?

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To be fair, that's dripping from a fish prep station. Probably tastes absolutely heavenly to the manatee. Like fish guts iced tea or something.