Manatees in South Carolina - History and Current Distribution

Historically manatees have been observed in South Carolina since 1850. Between 1850 and 1981, 23 records of manatees in South Carolina were documented (Rathbun et al., 1982). From 1981 to 1986, four additional records were reported by O’Shea (1988). Between 1986 and 1992, 25 more records were recorded by the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources (SCDNR). Thus, only 52 records of manatees were documented over 142 years (1850 - 1992), suggesting manatees were rare visitors in South Carolina.

During summer of 1993, SCDNR began a project to document when and where manatees were observed in our state waters to include attempts to identify individual manatees. Identification of individuals in the population can determine, at least, a minimum number of individual manatees frequenting our state waters and evaluate repeated sightings of same individuals. However, identification of manatees in our productive, but murky, coastal waters can be difficult unlike the clear fresh waters of Florida. Identification can be further complicated by the fact that in our marine environment, manatees support an extensive growth of organisms on their backs, which obscures the propeller scars that are so frequently used to identify individuals. We placed posters in coastal marinas requesting information on manatees. Several news releases were published and were somewhat surprised when 77 reports of manatees were received. Most sightings were along the southern coast, but regular reports were received from the entire coast. During 1994 and 1995, we received an additional 40 and 32 manatee reports, respectively. Between 1996 and 2003, an additional 848 manatees were reported. An online public form for reporting manatee sightings has been available to the public on our agency website since 2007. The greater number of sightings in recent years may reflect the public's increased awareness of manatees and or may reflect larger presence of animals in our waters. Refer to map below for locations of observed manatees in South Carolina.

Check out the Manatee Sightings in South Carolina ArcGIS map