The manatee lay still, floating in the shallow waters of a Florida river over the weekend when a woman on a boat noticed something odd. As she moved closer and filmed with her phone, Hailey Warrington found a one-word message scrawled on the marine mammal’s back: “TRUMP.”
“This is just disturbing. One hundred percent disturbing,” Warrington, who discovered the defaced manatee in the Homosassa River, told the Sarasota Herald-Tribune.
Now federal and local authorities are investigating who is responsible for etching the president’s name on the threatened animal’s back. Harassment of a manatee is a criminal offense punishable by a $50,000 fine and up to a year in prison.
