News - Local

Tuesday, Nov. 10, 2009

Manatees likely a mom and calf

GAUTIER — Capt. Kathy Wilkinson gave a tour up the West Pascagoula River on Friday to six people from Jackson and was surprised by two unusual visitors to the area.

She said she had stopped her boat coming out of the bayou that connects the river to City Park about 1:30 p.m. and had begun giving her talk on how the Pascagoula River splits into east and west. She said she had her back to Northrop Grumman’s Ingalls Shipyard in the far distance, across the marsh, when suddenly the back of a manatee broke water.

“It popped up right beside us. It was awesome,” Wilkinson said. She and her tour waited, and about 30 yards away the manatee surfaced again, this time with what appeared to be a calf, about one-third the size of the adult. The adult was 12- to 14-feet long, and the pair was swimming upriver.

Wilkinson has been giving tours of the river for four years and had cruised the river many more years before that and never seen a manatee.

She and her husband, former Gautier City Councilman Jeff Wilkinson, reported the sighting to the state Department of Marine Resources on Friday and to NOAA on Tuesday.

“They were just up for a second,” Kathy Wilkinson said. “But they were instantly recognizable.”

She said they were near where the power lines cut across both branches of the Pascagoula River. The manatees were swimming in the middle of the river, where the depth is about 15 to 18 feet.

“It was really exciting,” she said. “Seeing a unicorn wouldn’t have compared to this.”