Florida man finds manatee snacking on grass in flooded back yard after storm Eta

‘You never know what you will catch on video around here’

Matt Hathaway of Flagler Beach was shocked to catch the large animal swimming in his garden snacking on his grass (Facebook/ Matt Hathaway)

A Florida man has been left baffled after spotting a huge manatee eating the lawn in his back garden after tropical storm Eta flooded the area.

Matt Hathaway of Flagler Beach, Florida, was shocked to see the large animal swimming in his garden and snacking on his grass last week and managed to capture the bizarre moment on film.

“Tide so high we have a manatee munching on grass IN OUR YARD,” Mr Hathaway wrote alongside the clip of the encounter on Facebook.

“You never know what you will catch on video around here,” he said in a later post.

Viewers of the video were similarly amazed by the video calling it “cool” and “awesome”. One person commented: “Our yard? Ha ha ha it looks like his home now.”

While some users were concerned that the manatee might end up becoming stranded when the tide washed back in, Mr Hathaway reassured posters that he “watched him swim away safely.”

Adult manatees range in size between eight to 13 feet and can weigh up to 1,300 lbs, according to Live Science.

The marine mammals are sometimes described as “sea cows” due to their “large stature, slow, lolling nature; and propensity to be eaten by other animals,” the website says.

The herbivores eat sea grasses or freshwater vegetation and can eat a tenth of its own weight in 24 hours.

The manatee sighting is far from the first unusual occurrence in the state amidst the flooding caused by the storm, as an enormous alligator was also spotted last week ambling across the greens of a Naples golf course.

The alligator shocked Floridians and was caught on video as it waddled across the green, heading towards a pond by the 17th hole of the 18-hole course.

A deluge of rain from Eta caused flooding last Monday across South Florida’s most densely populated urban areas with higher gusts swamping entire neighbourhoods, the Associated Press reported.

An alert from the National Hurricane Center said the storm had maximum sustained winds of 75mph (120kph) by Wednesday.