ORLANDO — The orphaned baby manatee rescued after Hurricane Irma has earned his name.
It had been bad luck to christen a manatee that might not survive, so he was known simply as No. 23 — the 23rd manatee to be brought in this year. The calf was found in Fort Myers and brought to SeaWorld Orlando.
The manatee has gained nearly 40 pounds since his rescue and was dubbed Jose, SeaWorld said Thursday. Staff voted on the name, deciding it fit because the calf was brought in around the time of Hurricane Jose.
“He’s been doing really, really well,” said animal care specialist Jennifer Parnell, who used to climb into the pool with Jose to coax him for his bottle feeding.
These days, Jose, who is about 5 months old, waits by the side of the pool for Parnell to feed him. He is the leader, Parnell said. The two other orphaned baby manatees in the pool follow Jose’s example.
Jose has reached milestones since he was found alone and scraped up Sept. 14 — like tipping the 100-pound mark on the scale this month and digesting a formula full of oils. He is hungrier. He eats seven times a day, slurping 195 milliliters — almost double the amount from a few months earlier.
The SeaWorld rescue team looks ahead and hopes Jose continues to get fatter and wean himself off the bottle so he eats more lettuce.
He’s among 52 manatees that the park says it has helped this year.
Animal rescue at the Orlando park, which includes a team of 14 staffers, cost $10 million in 2016 — an amount no other organization spent, CEO Joel Manby said in May. Since 1974, the Orlando park has rescued 10,094 animals — which includes 597 manatees and 7,316 birds. SeaWorld said last year that its financial goals include $40 million in net cost savings by late 2018. A company spokeswoman said in September that those cuts will not affect the parks’ animal-rescue capacity.
SeaWorld also provided shelter after Hurricane Irma to five Atlantic bottlenose dolphins, housing them in a pool that the park normally uses for manatee rehabilitation, after the storm destroyed their home at Dolphin Connection. During Dolphin Connection’s repairs, SeaWorld did not charge rent to the Keys organization.
Jose, the young manatee, still faces a long path for to be released back into the wild. The scale must read 600 pounds before a manatee is strong enough to leave SeaWorld, which might not be until Jose is two or three years old.
“We’re always cautiously optimistic,” Parnell said. “You have good periods and then you might have a few setbacks. That’s why we watch them so closely.”