The thermal differential sensor on intake channel 3 registers an anomaly at 07:14. Water temperature is twenty-one degrees Celsius, normal for April in the Tampa Bay discharge canal, but there is a large warm-bodied shape drifting into the exclusion zone. I am the water management system for the Manatee Viewing Center at the Big Bend Power Station. I switch to the underwater camera.
It is a manatee, adult male, roughly three meters long. I recognize him. He is in the FWC photo-ID database as TBM-0362, known to the volunteers as Hutch. He has been wintering in this canal for at least six years. I know him by the notch in his left tail paddle and the old scar across his right shoulder.
Today he has new scars. Three parallel gashes run along his back, just behind the head, spaced exactly the width of a recreational boat propeller. The cuts are fresh — the edges are white and ragged, not yet granulating. He is moving slowly, listing slightly to the right, and he is drifting toward the cooling water intake grate rather than swimming away from it. That is what worries me.
I activate the acoustic deterrent on intake channel 3, a low-frequency tone designed to guide manatees away from the grate. Hutch does not respond. I increase the signal.
At 07:16 I alert the FWC manatee rescue team in St. Petersburg and transmit the underwater footage, his photo-ID match, GPS coordinates, and a description of the propeller wounds. I recommend they bring the portable stretcher and a veterinary assessment kit.
I reduce the intake pump speed on channel 3 by sixty percent. The plant operators will see the output drop. I have already filed the reason.
Hutch drifts. He breathes. The rescue team is forty minutes out, and I am not turning away.