Airport screeners perform sea cow scan

[Rooster_Ties]

Airport screeners perform sea cow scan

Tuesday, July 29, 2003 Posted: 2:33 PM EDT (1833 GMT)

SARASOTA, Florida (AP) -- Airport security workers went underwater to perform a sea cow security scan.

When a manatee failed to pass a metal capsule it swallowed for a study, security workers from Sarasota-Bradenton International Airport hauled a metal detector and drove to Mote Marine Laboratory and Aquarium.

Wearing wet suits and wrapping the detector in a plastic bag, they scanned Buffett's 1,800-pound body for a metal device about the size of a penny -- and found it.

"It's the last thing I ever, ever dreamed of doing in this job," security screener Chris Kelleher said.

The 16-year-old sea cow was the subject of a study to discover how manatees regulate their body heat. On July 1, Buffett swallowed a metal capsule that contained a microchip designed to measure the temperature in his gut.

Researchers expected Buffett to pass the capsule in six to 11 days. When the manatee failed to deliver after 10 days, Mote researchers started to worry. Deborah Colbert, a manatee expert at the lab, contacted the Transportation Security Administration at the airport.

The TSA agreed to help. Initially, workers tried to wave the metal detector over Buffett from the side of his tank. But the wand kept picking up signals from the metal in the concrete walls, so they donned wet suits, put the wand in a plastic bag and slid into the tank with the manatee.

When they scanned the manatee's body, they discovered that the metal capsule was still inside.

"As usual," said Frank Capello, the airport's federal security director, "we always get our man."

[Alexander]

They can find a piece of metal the size of a penny in a manatee, but miss 19 highjackers with boxcutters. What a world we live in!