ONE OF THE FIRST THINGS

YOU’LL LEARN WHEN VISITING Florida’s coastal manatee habitats is that these creatures make people emotional. Any seasoned guide you talk to will have stories of travelers returning from swimming encounters in a heightened state: laughing, teary-eyed, dumbstruck, or awed. Even veteran ecologist Joyce Palmer, who manages the 179-acre Crystal River National Wildlife Refuge (the only one in the United States dedicated specifically to the protection of these marine mammals), can clearly recall her earliest underwater meeting, while attending a work conference here back in 2007. “It was the most amazing day I’d had as a biologist swimming with manatees,” she says.

Palmer is far from alone in her feelings-some 400,000 people make their way to the refuge annually, hoping to get a little face time with these intriguing animals. Whether it’s their broad, wriggling snouts and wistful, wide-set eyes; the puppyish way they'll snuffle over to a human to suss them out; or their sheer size (an average adult is 10 feet long and 1,000-plus pounds), they make an indelible impact. And their ability to evoke this kind of emotional response in people might just be the key to manatees’ long-term survival, even as it requires a delicate dance to prevent in-person access from becoming its own kind of problem.

The Forgotten Mermaids

Manatees largely swam under the radar of public attention for decades. But thanks in part to Jacques Cousteau’s 1972 documentary episode on manatees, called “The Forgotten Mermaids” (parts of which were filmed in Crystal River) and the Marine Mammal Protection Act, which became law later that year, enthusiasm for these creatures began to swell. By 1975, they were named the official marine mammal of Florida.