I think you, like the readers over at John’s original post, misunderstand.

Neither Kirk in his post, not I here, say that Ogopogo is a manatee.

What Kirk did post, and what I said was interesting in light of this report, was that OTHER local legends of “little people” who lived in the waters of the lake were believed by some others to be accounts of a freshwater population of Steller’s sea cow or some other manatee or dugong type animal.

If you want to refer back to the original post I was referencing, it was “Kidnapped by Sasquatch” posted on July 29.

What John says in his article there is:

“there are some stories about other strange beings such as the little people who are said to have once lived in the waters of Okanagan Lake. From the descriptions gathered, it would appear that the little people are possibly a pod of manatees that some how entered Okanagan Lake from the Columbia river system before it was all dammed up in the 1920’s.”

Everything clear as mud now?

At first glance, we had no idea what we were seeing, as the wake it created was so large and seemed to be moving so slowly across the surface. Eventually, we got close enough see him (or her) in the clear water, and were just amazed at the sheer size and grace of this creature.

It doesn’t surprise me that manatees were mistaken, or misidentified, as sea monsters or sirens in simpler times. They are magnificent creatures, and if anyone here hasn’t seen one, you should make every effort to view a live manatee, even in captivity.

You’ll never forget it.

Unfortunately, I share the concerns expressed here about the health of this particular creature. If it is a manatee, it’s far from its natural warm-water habitat, and that’s not good.

Jeremy’s comment about this particular event being a possible result of global warming seems pretty plausible to me.

Could it be, as others have hypothesized when dealing with out of place critters far north of native habitats, that we are seeing the effects of global warming on the distribution of animal populations?