One of the oldest manatees that regularly visited Blue Spring State Park in central Florida died last month.
The nonprofit group Save the Manatee Club announced that a watercraft killed Paddy Doyle, one of the club’s oldest adoptees, in the St. Johns River near Jacksonville at the end of April. The manatee was in great physical condition at the time of his death, despite propeller scars on his back and tail.
A news release estimated Paddy to be in his late 50s or early 60s, outliving the average lifespan of a wild manatee. A social, playful, and feisty fellow, people first spotted the manatee at Blue Spring in 1971, where an Irish researcher gave Paddy his “fighting Irishman” name. He received his official ID number and name eight years later, in 1979. He was already nine feet long and weighed 1,078 pounds at the time…