Melby, a 410-pound manatee, is on his way toward recovery after UF rescue teams, Melbourne Beach fire units and wildlife authorities came together to save him from a storm drain Feb. 9.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission received word about Melby’s dilemma through a call to the wildlife hotline from a surveyor in Melbourne Beach, east of Orlando. He was found stuck in a “baffle box,” a concrete structure used to filter out pollutants from water prior to it entering the waterways.
Luckily, UF rescue teams were nearby conducting large animal rescue training for the Brevard County Fire Rescue, and three rescue team members quickly arrived on the scene.
Brandi Phillips, a technical rescue branch director at UF Veterinary Emergency Treatment Service, was one of them. Working together with members of other wildlife agencies can be complicated, but that teamwork ultimately yielded success, Phillips said.
“We had Melbourne Beach Public Works, who was responsible for removing the concrete and the asphalt from the roadway,” she said. “We had Brevard County Fire Rescue there. We had our team there, we had FWC there. Making sure that everybody was clearly communicating was a critical element of that.”
The baffle box was located on a road near a neighborhood, and Phillips recalled local families standing around to watch the rescue. Those families gave the team hope, keeping the rescuers invested in the overall welfare of the manatee, she said.
Although the FWC’s manatee rescue crew was equipped with resources to save Melby, the animal’s unusual location made some of the equipment difficult to use. Most of the animal rescue equipment from the fire department was also for livestock, Phillips noted.
Still, she said the team worked tirelessly to complete the rescue, which took about two hours once operations were underway.
Rescuers relocated Melby to SeaWorld Orlando, where he has already shown signs of improvement, said Blake Faucett, an assistant research scientist at the FWC. Manatees in critical condition often take time before being able to eat on their own, but Melby has already begun doing so.
Faucett, who was present for Melby’s rescue, said the manatee’s lesions and thin body indicated he was stuck in the storm drain for an extended period of time.
Faucett and other rescue members monitored his breath rate to assess his activity and alertness throughout the extraction, she said.
“We were just making sure that he was stable in the moment and that the operation was safe,” she said.
Michael Walsh, a clinical associate professor at the UF College of Veterinary Medicine and a former veterinarian at SeaWorld, said manatees swim toward warmer water because their thin blubber can’t withstand temperatures under 68 degrees Fahrenheit.
That’s likely how Melby ended up in the drain, Walsh said.
“In the normal environment, they're going to move towards those thermoclines that are warmer and try to find a place where they can rest,” Walsh said, “and hopefully it's high enough in temperature that they can actually stay there and benefit from them.”
Manatees like Melby sometimes venture through pipes until they get stuck and can’t turn around — what Walsh described as a “one-way street.” Walsh compared a recent drop in water temperature to a weather episode from 2010, when Florida sea life, including manatees and sharks, had a mass die-off due to cold water temperatures that dipped 10 to 30 degrees below the usual temperature.
Walsh also noted the FWC has been fixing this issue with storm drains by working toward putting gates on the ends of them to prevent animals from getting trapped.
“The history on saving the manatee is amazing,” Walsh said.
Contact Lilianne Fernandez at lfernandez@alligator.org. Follow her on X @ltfernandez8.
Lilianne is a first-year English student and the University desk's Spring 2026 Santa Fe reporter. In her free time, she enjoys going on runs, hanging out with friends, or listening to music.
