In recent months, the park has fed its nine manatees a new chow that University of Florida veterinarian Paul Cardeilhac developed. The nuggets are a concentration of all the nutritional ingredients the captive creatures would pick up if they were munching weeds in the open waters.

Each manatee consumes 50 or more pounds of lettuce per day, so Cardeilhac estimates the park could save $73,000 per year by feeding them his chow along with lesser amounts of lettuce and other vegetables.

Because the food has a concentrated nutrient density, a manatee would need just 21/2 pounds of the chow a day at an annual cost of $2,000. Fresh produce could cost $18,000 per year for each animal.

"The manatees in captivity are there primarily because of injuries caused by humans," Cardeilhac was quoted as saying in a UF news release. "It's our responsibility to take care of those animals. We don't want the cost of feed to be prohibitive of keeping a manatee in captivity as long as needed."

The nine manatees in Homosassa Springs are among 43 manatees in captivity nationwide. Park visitors can observe the gentle giants.

The park manatees get the nuggets - which consist of alfalfa, soybean meal and hulls, kelp, wheat and vitamins and minerals - as a part of the daily manatee shows. The nuggets also float, although when dropped in the park's feeding area - known as the "salad bar" - they tend to get snatched by the wild sheepshead that share the fishbowl area with the manatees, according to veterinarian Mark Lowe.

Lowe said he is monitoring the manatees closely to make sure the new food doesn't cause more problems than it might solve. Manatees are built to process large quantities of vegetation every day, so lettuce and carrots will always be part of their menu at the park.

"There is no way I would ever dare stop that. Manatees are a browser, a grazing type of animal," Lowe said.

"My manatees in Homosassa are fat and I was hoping to give them something that might help them loose 100 pounds or so," Lowe said. That means the chow that has been used so far, which was designed to be highly digestible and packed with calories, would not be good in the long run to feed the Homosassa captive heard. It was basically created to help captive injured animals who need concentrated nutrition.

No problem. Cardeilhac, who is a professor at UF's College of Veterinary Medicine and Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, has devised a second formula for manatee maintenance.