Trichechus manatus
West Indian Manatee
Official State Marine Mammal of Alabama
Alabama's official state marine mammal is the West Indian manatee. The Alabama Legislature designated it in 2009 — a separate designation from the state mammal, the American black bear, which was adopted in 2006.
The Alabama Legislature designated the West Indian manatee as the official state marine mammal in 2009. Representative Jim Barton sponsored the bill in the state legislature.
The effort behind the bill did not originate in the legislature. It came from fourth graders at St. Ignatius Catholic School in Mobile. The students had learned about the manatee's precarious status and organized to push for an official recognition — their stated goal was to raise public awareness about an animal they believed Alabamians were not paying enough attention to. The legislature passed the bill and the designation became law.
Manatees travel seasonally through the northern Gulf of Mexico. Alabama's warm, shallow coastal waters and estuaries are part of that range — the animals are observed in Mobile Bay and its tributaries with enough regularity that researchers established a dedicated tracking network there, not in Florida but in Alabama.
The Dauphin Island Sea Lab operates the Manatee Sighting Network, the first such network outside Florida dedicated to tracking manatee movements in the northern Gulf. Its first Alabama-water tagging was recorded in September 2009 — the same year the legislature voted on the designation.
Mobile Bay is Alabama's most ecologically significant coastal body of water and the primary area where manatees are documented in the state. The bay's extensive shallows, warm summer temperatures, and connections to freshwater river systems make it suitable for manatees passing through or lingering during the warmer months. Sightings in Dog River — a Mobile Bay tributary — have been recorded by researchers and community observers.
A manatee named Ellie, tagged by researchers in Crystal River, Florida, was documented in Dog River in Mobile Bay in 2007 — roughly 350 miles from her Florida home waters. Ellie's appearance was not a freak event; it illustrated the kind of long-range coastal movement that makes Alabama waters a real part of the West Indian manatee's northern Gulf range, and the kind of trackable, local detail that the DISL network was built to capture.
Manatee "Ellie," tagged in Crystal River, Florida, is documented in Dog River (Mobile Bay) — about 350 miles from her home waters, confirming Alabama coastal presence
Fourth graders at St. Ignatius Catholic School in Mobile, led by Rep. Jim Barton's bill, secure the West Indian manatee designation; Dauphin Island Sea Lab records its first Alabama-water tagging the same year
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reclassifies the West Indian manatee from endangered to threatened; ESA and MMPA protections remain in effect
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Yes. The West Indian manatee remains protected under federal law. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reclassified the species from endangered to threatened in 2017, but protection under the Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act continues.
The reclassification to threatened reflects some population recovery, not removal from concern. Federal protections — including prohibitions on harassing, hunting, capturing, or killing manatees — remain fully in effect. Alabama's state marine mammal designation does not change the federal legal framework; it runs alongside it.
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