The Florida Undercover Cops (FUC) have unveiled their boldest anti-poaching tool yet: a giant, motorized, remarkably lifelike fake manatee — codenamed the Narcatee — large enough to conceal two officers inside, provided both weigh under 175 pounds.
The decoy, which the agency demonstrated this week, is a marvel of tactical marine engineering.
It features a periscope for peering out from underwater, a solar-powered AC unit, built-in Starlink, and a forward-facing sonar unit for navigating the state’s murkier water. Because manatees roam freely between fresh and saltwater, officials say, no other disguise offered such range.
“You cannot out-swim a manatee that files paperwork,” said Sergeant Rip Current, pausing to groom his fu manchu at a FUC press conference.
“Nobody ever suspects the sea cow.”
By the agency’s count, the program has already netted more than 67 poachers — from the springs of the interior to the sands of Anna Maria Island to the shores of Fernandina Beach.
Among the more memorable arrests: a 65-year-old couple, Merle and Darlene Sturgill, caught spearfishing sturgeon — completely naked — in a protected spring. The pair told officers they had heard from a cousin in Canada that sturgeon produce caviar, and hoped to “get rich selling to the Frenchies.”
In another case, a man who identified himself only as Jim Smith insisted, repeatedly, that he spoke no English. It turned out he simply preferred not to discuss the cooler of undersized snook and redfish stashed behind his camper — a haul the Narcatee had quietly filmed him catching over 48 hours off the Siesta Key Campground.
This is, notably, the 2.0 version. The original prototype met a difficult end during last year’s manatee mating season, when it was, in Current’s words, “aggressively courted” and ultimately mangled beyond repair by a real and very determined suitor.
The two officers aboard were forced to abandon ship and swim to a nearby island for safety.
The water, it was later noted, was three feet deep.
