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Walt Disney World is welcoming two new short-term residents at The Seas with Nemo & Friends

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Published  February 10, 2025 9:28pm EST
Walt Disney World
FOX 35 Orlando

Two new sea mammal residents at Disney's Epcot

Cider and Mino are the two newest manatees at EPCOT’s The Seas with Nemo & Friends. Disney is transitioning its manatee program to short-term rehabilitation. FOX 35's Stephanie Buffamonte learns more about the sea cows and how Disney's program is changing.

The Brief

    • Cider and Mino are the two newest manatees at EPCOT’s The Seas with Nemo & Friends.
    • Disney is transitioning its manatee program to short-term rehabilitation.

ORLANDO, Fla. - Cider and Mino are the two newest manatees at EPCOT’s The Seas with Nemo & Friends. 

Disney is transitioning its manatee program in partnership with the Manatee Rescue & Rehabilitation Partnership (MRP) and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) to help rehabilitate the beloved sea cows.

What they're saying:

"It’s really cool to see them out exploring their habitat, eating all their lettuce, and feeling good," said Dr. Jen Flower, a veterinarian with Disney.

Many Disney fans will remember Lil Joe who recently moved from EPCOT to the Gulfarium Marine Adventure Park in the panhandle.

"We really did love Lil Joe and so it was sad for him to go," said Animal Health Director Dr. Geoff Pye.
"But, the flip side of that is that we're really going to have a good impact on manatee success here in Florida," he continued.

Lil Joe

Dr. Pye and the team at Disney are transitioning to short-term stays for manatees. They’ll be housing rescued manatees, getting them healthy, and releasing them back into the wild.

"We used to look after long-term resident manatees that couldn't be released anymore. I feel now that we're going into a more critical point of looking after rehabilitated manatees with the goal of releasing them back to the wild," said Dr. Pye. "I feel like our conservation efforts are having more impact now."

The two gentle giants have been at Disney for over a month. Dr. Jen Flower, a veterinarian at Disney, has been working on getting Cider and Mino in good health.

Mino still needs to gain weight to meet the 600 lbs. requirement to be released and Cider is dealing with an infection.

The animal care team has access to advanced technology to help care for the manatees that are also used on other large animals at Animal Kingdom.

"The really cool thing about Cider being here with us at Disney is we were able to take her to Disney's Animal Kingdom for a CT scan so that we could better characterize that infection in her neck and figure out how to best treat it," said Dr. Flower. "They actually are quite challenging to diagnose because they're so big and they have such thick skin and it's really hard to see on the inside of them."

All of these efforts are to help the species.

"These manatees in the wild, they're really they're struggling. There's a lot of injuries, a lot of illness, and food scarcity in the wild. That these animals are starving to death," said Dr. Flower. "We all in the Manatee Rescue and Rehabilitation partnership, play a huge role in the conservation of the species and it's so exciting that Disney gets to play an even bigger role now."

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The Source: The information in this article comes from reporting done by FOX 35's Stephanie Buffamonte.

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