ZooTampa has surpassed its record for most manatees taken into the park's critical care center at 27 patients. With November being Manatee Awareness Month, officials are using this announcement to highlight the ongoing need to help sick, injured and orphaned sea cows. “We have already released 12 manatees back to Florida waters and have an additional 13 releases scheduled this winter," Tiffany Burns, ZooTampa’s senior director of animal programs and president of the Manatee Rescue and Rehabilitation Partnership, said in a statement. "However, the manatees keep coming in and the need for critical care intervention will be even higher as the temperatures drop and some manatees struggle to find warmer waters.” In early November, ZooTampa took in a manatee rescued in the Big Bend of Florida that traveled nearly a mile and a half away from open water due to significant storm surge flooding. On Monday, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission announced that a manatee found belly-up over the weekend in a canal in Pinellas County died from "chronic cold stress". KEEP READING: https://www.wtsp.com/article/life/animals/manatees-treated-critical-care-zootampa/67-9d9c5d8b-522c-4c9b-b0b5-4c6ddbb2dcb8