New Jersey-loving Manatee Heads Home

New Jersey often gets a bad rap, but the Garden State apparently appealed to a wayward manatee who spent nearly half of October up north after mysteriously traveling up the Eastern seaboard from Florida.

The over-sized sea creature was rescued on Oct. 27 near a Linden, NJ oil refinery almost two weeks after it was first spotted on Oct. 15. Apparently the 1,110-pound sea beast, dubbed Ilya, wasn't too anxious to get back home. The rescue took eight hours and the help of 30 people.

Rescuers tried and failed to capture Ilya three times, and finally claimed victory on the fourth attempt. The rescue was necessary because manatees are not equipped to handle temperatures below about 68 degrees, and he was swimming in waters that dipped into the low 50s.

"We're very relieved. We spent a lot of days worrying about him," Bob Schoelkopf, co-director of the Marine Mammal Stranding Center in Brigantine, NJ, which housed Ilya in a heated pool after his rescue, told NBC New York.

Ilya apparently wasn't worried for himself. After his capture he happily munched on $300 worth of lettuce in two days to regain his strength. "All this thing did was eat,'' Schoelkopf said. "But that's a good thing.'' (Ilya is my kind of manatee!)

Marine mammal veterinarians deemed him well enough to be transferred back to Florida with the help of the Coast Guard earlier this week. He's now residing at the Miami Seaquarium, whose staff will further rehabilitate Ilya before releasing him back to the sea.

Nobody seems to know why Ilya trekked northward on his own, but we sure hope he enjoyed his adventure, and we're glad he's home safe and sound.

Photo courtesy of Rusty Boxcars via Flickr.