Snooty, world's oldest captive manatee, is no more - South Florida Museum mourns his death

New Delhi: Snooty, the world's oldest known manatee in captivity, has died in an apparent underwater accident at a Florida aquarium just one day after celebrating his 69th birthday.

Officials said the giant marine mammal was found dead at Bradenton`s South Florida Museum early on Sunday.

Initial signs revealed Snooty had swam into a normally closed underwater area housing plumbing for the manatee exhibit and was unable to get out, the museum said in a statement.

“Our initial investigation indicates that Snooty’s death was a heartbreaking accident and we’re all quite devastated about his passing,” Brynne Anne Besio, the museum’s chief executive, said in a statement.

Three manatees in the exhibit who are being rehabilitated for a return to the wild were unharmed. Announcing Snooty's death on Facebook, the museum said it would carry out a full investigation and a necroscopy would be performed.

Musuem officials said the other three manatees undergoing rehabilitation in Snooty’s habitat - Randall, Baca and Gale - are all fine.

Snooty was born in a Miami aquarium on July 21, 1948, and moved to Bradenton, a Tampa suburb, in 1949. He became the official mascot of Manatee County in 1979 and had more than a million visitors, the statement said.

About 5,000 people attended a birthday celebration for Snooty on Saturday, museum officials said.

West Indian manatees, also known as sea cows, were taken off US Interior Department`s list of endangered species in March.

Manatees are native to the Florida coastline and their numbers have soared because of decades of conservation efforts.

A necropsy, or animal autopsy, will be performed at the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission’s Marine Mammal Pathobiology Laboratory in St Petersburg.