Manatees suffering from depressed temperatures in normally mild Florida hang out in the warm discharges of the state’s power plants.

According to a Associated Press report, manatees are congregating around the Florida Power & Light Company plant in Riviera Beach, where the company opened the manatee-focused attraction Manatee Lagoon eight years ago. So, manatees find safety during a cold season in the Sunshine State.

The manatee grows to about 10 feet in length (3 meters) and weighs between 800 and 1,200 pounds (363 kilograms to 544 kilograms). They are native to Florida waters, which are usually warm.

But a polar vortex Much of the United States clamped down last week and its cooler-than-average temperatures grazed Florida, making the manatees’ normally warm home uncomfortably cold. So, the sea cows head for the warm—and most importantly, clean—water runoff from the power plant.

“Manatees are a special species to have in our waters here in Florida, because they are a sentinel species, which means they are an indicator of any water problems we may have or any environmental issues. that we can,” Rachel Shanker, an education manager at Manatee Lagoon, told the AP. “They are the kind of first animals that start to respond to any changes in the environment.”

For the past two years, manatees in Florida have been suffering from a starvation event. A devastating loss of local seagrass, the species’ favorite food, was caused by algal blooms. Threatened manatees—listed as endangered as of 2017—have become a scourge across the state, and in 2021 the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission reported a record 1,100 manatee deaths.

The situation has become so bad that in 2022 the state resorted to feeding animals heads of romaine lettuce. The following year, conservation groups announced their intention to sue the US Fish and Wildlife Services over the agency’s alleged failure to protect manatees.

“The manatees come here to Manatee Lagoon for the warm water, but we don’t have a large population of seagrass right here on our property,” Shanker told the AP. “And so they come here to Manatee Lagoon to get warm, then when they start to get hungry, they travel to find grass, and they go feed until they’re full, and they get cold, and they come back to our heat water to warm up.” According to Shanker, the plant uses seawater to cool the plant but it doesn’t change—in other words, it’s just warm seawater.

Seagrass populations on the Atlantic coast have recovered since their demise, and manatee populations have increased accordingly; last year’s total manatee deaths (565 deaths) were “well below the average (739) of the five most recent years,” according to Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

The population is still threatened, and Florida no stranger to natural disasters which affects the habitat of animals. But recent numbers have manatees on the uptick, and that’s something to celebrate.