South Florida residents were shocked to discover a manatee swimming in a man-made lake last week as biologists theorize how the animal ended up so far from home.

A resident captured a video of the animal swimming in a lake west of Fort Lauderdale last week, about 10 miles from the Atlantic Ocean where the species usually resides. 

Biologists have speculated that the manatee left the coast using underground passageways to reach Pembroke Pines Lake in search of food and warm, shallow waters.

Manatees have struggled to find food in recent years and because they can survive in fresh, brackish and salty water, they can travel hundreds of miles from their home to find sustenance. 

Manatees, also known as sea cows, can grow as big as 13 feet long, weigh over 3,000 pounds and can find their way into bodies of water like lakes and ponds by traveling through storm drains and nearby canals.

Although these connecting passageways can’t be seen on a map, Amber Howell, a biologist with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, told Business Insider there are large pipes called culverts under the roads.

‘The culverts in this area are big enough for a manatee to safely swim through,’ she said.

There is a floodgate they normally would have had to navigate, but it’s typically left open during Florida’s rainy season which lasts from May through October.

‘I grew up with manatees,’ Bill Barnett, a Pembroke Pines resident who saw the animal told WPLG Local 10, adding: ‘This is the first one we’ve seen on the lake. I’ve been here like 15 years.’

Another resident, Myriam Schenk told the outlet she had also witnessed the manatee.

‘I saw the face and I said, ‘What is this?’ I started taking a video and said, ‘This is a manatee!’’

According to Local 10, the lake contains fish and turtles but is not native to the manatee.

The manatee - Florida’s official state freshwater mammal - is classified as a threatened species that is dying out because of a reduced food supply.

The reduction is due, in part, to algae blooms that are killing seagrass which serves as the main food source for the manatee alongside other vegetation like submerged and floating plants.

Manatees typically spend up to eight hours a day eating sea vegetation and can consume four to nine percent of their body weight daily.

Algae blooms, also known as harmful algal blooms (HABs) in the Atlantic Ocean include phytoplankton can make the water cloudy and limit the amount of sunlight that reaches the seagrass, damaging the vegetation and making it difficult for it to regrow.

Some HABs are also toxic to manatees if they eat it, like the microalgae Karenia brevis which is common in Florida and caused the deaths of about 123 manatees between November 2022 and June 2023.

Outside of the winter months, the animals tend to travel around Florida’s waterways to search for food, mates and a shallow place to rest, sometimes traveling dozens of miles to reach a new area.

Earlier this year, a separate manatee had traveled over 100 miles from the ocean to reach Lake Apopka in Oakland, Florida.

However, this is not the first time the sea cow was spotted in Pembroke Pines Lake, with another reported by the local police department in 2021.

At the time, the Pembroke Pines PD posted a video of the manatee and asked residents and visitors to ‘be respectful of our native wildlife.

‘Under Florida law, it is illegal to feed, harass, harm, pursue, or annoy a manatee. Please enjoy him/her from a distance.’

State wildlife officers eventually had to rescue the animal because it was underweight and swimming erratically, but biologists told Local 10 that the lake’s newest resident appears to be healthy and has access to plenty of food.

‘In this area, there is a lot of shoreline vegetation, which they'll take advantage of,’ Howell told BI, adding that there’s ‘absolutely no concern’ for the wellbeing of this manatee.

Florida residents who want to report seeing a manatee who seems in distress can call the Wildlife Alert Hotline at 888-404-3922.