2025 was a big year for one of Florida’s premier manatee rescue organizations.
ZooTampa released 26 rehabilitated manatees back into Florida waters in 2025—the highest number in its long history.
The accomplishment, the zoo stated, underscores its pivotal role in conserving this iconic species and its role within the manatee rescue network in the state.
These graceful marine mammals are a Florida icon, but nevertheless vulnerable to being struck by boats, and displacement from habitat loss. Every year, dozens of wounded manatees are rescued by organizations like ZooTampa.
The zoo’s David Straz Jr. Manatee Critical Care Center, the largest nonprofit facility of its kind in the US, has cared for over 615 manatees since 1991, with the majority successfully returned to their natural habitat.
The manatee rescue, rehabilitation, and release program costs the zoo $2 million a year, and consists of an expert team of veterinarians, including two US Fish and Wildlife Service-certified manatee critical care veterinarians, and animal care professionals.
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The program could never be more needed, as it’s estimated that of the over 620 manatees died in across Florida waters in 2025, 97 were from boat strikes.
In spring 2026, ZooTampa will unveil the Straz Family Manatee Rescue, a state-of-the-art facility that will offer visitors immersive, eye-level underwater views of manatees, providing a unique opportunity to witness the zoo’s life-saving efforts firsthand.
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Visitors can see life-saving care in real time in the soon-to-be-five critical care pools where the floors raise up to bring manatees out of the water for their medical treatments. They can also watch manatees in two naturalistic rehabilitation pools as they continue to get ready to be released back into the wild.
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