If you boat or live along the Connecticut shoreline and Long Island Sound, near brackish and freshwater streams, slow down, we may have an extremely special visitor in our water, the first confirmed Manatee sighting in New England in 8 years.

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According to Connecticut Fish and Wildlife and the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management, there has been an unconfirmed report of a manatee near Milford, Connecticut, and New England's first confirmed manatee sighting since 2016 in Rhode Island's Quonochontaug Pond. Where is Quonochontaug Pond? Charlestown,  it's just to the East of beaches very familiar to most in Connecticut - Watch Hill and Misquamicut.

Mystic Aquarium is all over this situation, they're closely monitoring Manatee-Mania 2023 with the help of the US Fish and Wildlife Service and ask that you report any manatee sighting through the Mystic Aquarium Animal Rescue Hotline, which can be reached by calling 860-572-5955 - Extension 107.

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Manatees are protected under the Endangered Species Act and Marine Mammal Protection Act, and such a rarity in our part of the world. Please stay away, at least 150 feet, and slow your props. Obviously, don't touch or feed it. Manatees were reported in Falmouth, Harwich, and Buzzards Bay in the Cape in September of 2016, and in 2006 a wandering manatee was reported along the Might Hudson in New York, Rhode Island, and the Cape.

It's our turn Connecticut. With so many people enjoying Silver Sands in Milford this summer, and all of those selfies snapping away, nobody got a shot of the manatee?

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