My fifth week in Canada is officially over, and it was really fun. This week I got to do my first ‘play’ sessions with the whales. This is where the trainers go out with toys/mirrors/etc. to just hang out and interact with the animals which builds a better relationship and is really enriching for the animals. We have absolutely no food, but the whales still come to you just for fun- which is amazing. I ‘played’ with Tiqa, the one year old whale who is adorable, with basically a floaty noodle people use in pools. She would bump it and chew on it etc, and also got tongue rubs and lots of ‘petting’ from me. Basically it was a fantastic experience. I got to do the same thing with her dad Imaq and another older whale, Kavna.
Playing was a pretty big deal because the animals are getting to the point where the recognize the interns and will actually ‘give us the eye’ when we walk past. It’s really cool- they’ll kind of peek at you from underwater and judge whether your worthy of their attention or not. I got quite a whale compliment because Kavna (the oldest and most finicky beluga) eyed me for about 5 minutes, but then popped up and stationed for me for tongue rubs even though I didn’t have any fish for her! It sounds very lame- but it is really cool for me to actually see how my relationship is progressing with all the animals.
I also got to be the test dummy for ‘beluga encounters’ that the aquarium offers to the public. This basically meant that I stood by the pool in a raincoat while the whales practiced splashing me. It was very wet, but a lot of fun, I learned how to ask a whale for a ‘spit’.
Other than that I can’t think of anything too exciting- I’m going to a Canada Day BBQ/party on Wednesday (July 1st) which should be pretty fun (although it is an incredibly lame holiday compared to the 4th), and maybe the other Americans and I will plan something for the real independence day on Saturday! I’ve already burnt an “America” CD to listen to while I work in Fish House next week- it features such great artists as the Boss, John cougar Mellencamp, and Lee Greenwood.
I miss you guys, but am still loving Vancouver- more later!
Monday, June 29, 2009
Another great week in Vancouver, we began training this week. I got to give some hand signals for the whales and actually feed an entire session by myself because we were short-staffed. I pretty much only know how to ‘point’ and ‘station’ so far, but it’s a start! I also gave my first beluga tongue rub. Belugas have incredibly sensitive tongues, so they will come right up to you and open their mouths to try to get a tongue rub, it’s kind of like rubbing a dog’s belly, they really enjoy it. It is a pretty weird feeling to put your hand in a whale’s mouth, though they are completely unaggressive they do have some pretty good sized chompers. It also just feels weird to pet something’s tongue- but it is pretty fun. You can tell the whales love it, they look really content.
This coming week we get to learn the exciting task of power washing the otter exhibits! Yippee. This means I ‘get’ to be at work at 6:30am once a week. You can probably tell how excited I am to be learning this great life skill. We have to wear these yellow overall getups and glasses when we clean, but I still expect to be covered in algae and other…stuff…from the otter pool when I’m done. But, besides manual labor we should get to do some pretty cool stuff with training. We’ll learn a little more about the academic side on Wednesday and then probably get to try some practical application the rest of the week.
I’m really excited, but pretty worn out and it’s only the beginning of the week, so it might be a long haul to make it to my second month here. I’ve officially been in Vancouver for over a month and worked almost 200 hours, I think it’s about time for a vacation!
This coming week we get to learn the exciting task of power washing the otter exhibits! Yippee. This means I ‘get’ to be at work at 6:30am once a week. You can probably tell how excited I am to be learning this great life skill. We have to wear these yellow overall getups and glasses when we clean, but I still expect to be covered in algae and other…stuff…from the otter pool when I’m done. But, besides manual labor we should get to do some pretty cool stuff with training. We’ll learn a little more about the academic side on Wednesday and then probably get to try some practical application the rest of the week.
I’m really excited, but pretty worn out and it’s only the beginning of the week, so it might be a long haul to make it to my second month here. I’ve officially been in Vancouver for over a month and worked almost 200 hours, I think it’s about time for a vacation!
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Today was the beginning of my fourth week in Vancouver- we are finally starting to learn training tomorrow! We're learning what's called the 'ABC's, basically what 'bridging' and training are all about, how to reinforce/reward/ignore behaviors, how to change our body language properly etc. so it should be really fun and probably kind of overwhelming in a good way!
All in all it was a good 'Monday' I got my first kiss from a whale, Imaq, and it was very salty! I also got to start at 9:30am instead of 7am which is a relief. For some reason though I was still really tired and pretty loopy all day. The trainers say it is called 'Beluga Dimentia', haha. They're half serious though- with the new baby arriving our schedules have been switched around so much, our duties have changed, and our normal pattern is compeltely different which can really throw you off. Combine this with 2 straight days of me having been completely underwater in the dark for about 7 hours and you get pretty disoriented!
Despite a headache since after lunch it was a cool day, I got to feed some whales and participate in some behavior training in the afternoon and found out I'm already presenting part of my sea otter project next week! The staff may actually change how they do things based on my recommendations. This means I have to brainstorm pretty hard all week to come up with actual feasible and good suggestions rather than just theoretical ones- but I can't believe I might actually make on impact on how the otters are cared for at the aquarium!
Anyway, I still have a headache and no medicine so I'm just taking it easy and watching the Bourne Identity- it's a pretty quiet Tuesday night for me!
All in all it was a good 'Monday' I got my first kiss from a whale, Imaq, and it was very salty! I also got to start at 9:30am instead of 7am which is a relief. For some reason though I was still really tired and pretty loopy all day. The trainers say it is called 'Beluga Dimentia', haha. They're half serious though- with the new baby arriving our schedules have been switched around so much, our duties have changed, and our normal pattern is compeltely different which can really throw you off. Combine this with 2 straight days of me having been completely underwater in the dark for about 7 hours and you get pretty disoriented!
Despite a headache since after lunch it was a cool day, I got to feed some whales and participate in some behavior training in the afternoon and found out I'm already presenting part of my sea otter project next week! The staff may actually change how they do things based on my recommendations. This means I have to brainstorm pretty hard all week to come up with actual feasible and good suggestions rather than just theoretical ones- but I can't believe I might actually make on impact on how the otters are cared for at the aquarium!
Anyway, I still have a headache and no medicine so I'm just taking it easy and watching the Bourne Identity- it's a pretty quiet Tuesday night for me!
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Well my weekend was a bit short-lived, but for very good reasons! On Sunday late afternoon the new baby Beluga whale was born! I got to watch the labor and birth from about 1:45pm on. It was really exciting and a pretty once and a lifetime experience. The calf is a little girl and is sooooo adorable (and not that little). She is bigger than me actually probably almost 6ft and 130-40 lbs. (and she could swim better than I can about 1 minute after she was born)
Of course having a new baby around has thrown off the schedule a little bit, but we interns are just doing whatever they tell us too. Starting to learn whale training may be delayed a week or two- but it's worked out fine as they've put us on different duties. We only have to do fish house once or twice a weel from now on, Hallelujah! Instead I've been working more with the sea otters or on 'baby watch'. This means I sit in 'underwater viewing' and 'supervise' volunteers. Not really, but Im supposedly an expert opinion for them to consult. We monitor and time respirations, aggression and nursing and record these for Aquarium research and the vet, Dr. Marty. I am on baby watch for the next two days for 7 hours a day. It should be interesting...I've been told to bring lots of snacks and caffeine as being underground in a dark and quiet viewing area is pretty condusive to sleep after a couple of hours. But hey, a job where you all you do is watch 4 whales play all day isn't much to complain about!
If anyone wants I took a couple of photos birth/newborn, here you go!
I wasn't able to get many good ones and I haven't had time to sort through and edit them yet, but here are a few pictures of the new mom and baby whale: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2015999&id=1322040101&l=a24bf4940
I took video as well, hopefully it loads quickly for you if you'd like to watch. One is the birth and the other is one of the baby's first breaths (if you'd like something a little less National Geographic)
Of course having a new baby around has thrown off the schedule a little bit, but we interns are just doing whatever they tell us too. Starting to learn whale training may be delayed a week or two- but it's worked out fine as they've put us on different duties. We only have to do fish house once or twice a weel from now on, Hallelujah! Instead I've been working more with the sea otters or on 'baby watch'. This means I sit in 'underwater viewing' and 'supervise' volunteers. Not really, but Im supposedly an expert opinion for them to consult. We monitor and time respirations, aggression and nursing and record these for Aquarium research and the vet, Dr. Marty. I am on baby watch for the next two days for 7 hours a day. It should be interesting...I've been told to bring lots of snacks and caffeine as being underground in a dark and quiet viewing area is pretty condusive to sleep after a couple of hours. But hey, a job where you all you do is watch 4 whales play all day isn't much to complain about!
If anyone wants I took a couple of photos birth/newborn, here you go!
I wasn't able to get many good ones and I haven't had time to sort through and edit them yet, but here are a few pictures of the new mom and baby whale: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2015999&id=1322040101&l=a24bf4940
I took video as well, hopefully it loads quickly for you if you'd like to watch. One is the birth and the other is one of the baby's first breaths (if you'd like something a little less National Geographic)
Thursday, June 4, 2009
TGIF!
Hey everyone, sorry for my long updating absence, it has been a really busy second week. I’m still working from 7am to 3 every day in fish house, but have been doing a lot more outside as well. My day goes more like this now: sorting fish and making meals for the animals from 7 to 9:30, going up with the trainers to do something with Belugas (today we helped set up a dive to clean the exhibit). 10-11 we clean a lot and gut clams (because the otters won’t eat the guts), then we get to up again and go to an otter training session and then beluga training session, lunch time and then we only have an hour and a half left of cleaning and some more otters/belugas!
Between all this, we have ‘projects’ we’ve been assigned to present to the trainers at the end of the year. They’re pretty much just observatory, things the trainers would really like to know but are either unable to do it themselves because the animals recognize the trainers and therefore alter their behavior when they’re around or because they just don’t have the extra time. My project is on the behavior of the otters, one in particular Milo, tends to have a ‘pattern swim’ where he swims the exact same path over and over again (equivalent to pacing) which is a behavior the trainers really don’t want to see. So I hang out with him for about 30 minutes every day- 10 minutes before feeding, during feeding, and after feeding. I record all his behaviors so we can determine how they change in the presence of trainers, food, enrichment, audience etc. It’s pretty cool, after two days I’m already noticing a few established behavioral patterns. Basically I’ll summarize all my data and then present it to the Marine Mammal Department at the end of the summer in hopes that it will help them/future interns can continue the research if it seems promising.
Other than that nothing too out of the ordinary has happened lately. The next exciting thing to happen will probably be one of the belugas giving birth since she is due any day now. She is on 24 hour a day watch so that whenever labor starts everyone in the department (including us interns!) gets a call at home to come in and watch. I’m really excited about it since we get front row seats, I just hope it’s not at like 3am because I’m already tired enough at work in the mornings! I’ll be sure to take a ton of pictures of the baby when that happens and post them for everyone.
Vancouver is still as great as ever- very hot for the city this week, it’s been in the 80s every day. Since there’s no humidity here it’s been absolutely perfect weather for me. I sat outside and read at Coal Harbor (10 minutes from my apt.) for hours this week. It’s also been more fun because I’ve discovered the 19-25 crowd at the aquarium to hang out with! It’s one of the whale’s 1st birthday next week so the trainers will throw a big party then, which should be great. Last but not least I love where I live! The cats are amazing and really friendly and the place is in a great location and very well furnished and beautiful.
That’s pretty much everything I can think of, I have tomorrow off so I will probably give some of you a buzz to catch up! Oh, and I posted some pictures of my sublet and the cats if you want to see where I’m living:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2015198&id=1322040101&l=7b7399e4a9
(I hope that was enough distraction from work for one day Di-Di)
Between all this, we have ‘projects’ we’ve been assigned to present to the trainers at the end of the year. They’re pretty much just observatory, things the trainers would really like to know but are either unable to do it themselves because the animals recognize the trainers and therefore alter their behavior when they’re around or because they just don’t have the extra time. My project is on the behavior of the otters, one in particular Milo, tends to have a ‘pattern swim’ where he swims the exact same path over and over again (equivalent to pacing) which is a behavior the trainers really don’t want to see. So I hang out with him for about 30 minutes every day- 10 minutes before feeding, during feeding, and after feeding. I record all his behaviors so we can determine how they change in the presence of trainers, food, enrichment, audience etc. It’s pretty cool, after two days I’m already noticing a few established behavioral patterns. Basically I’ll summarize all my data and then present it to the Marine Mammal Department at the end of the summer in hopes that it will help them/future interns can continue the research if it seems promising.
Other than that nothing too out of the ordinary has happened lately. The next exciting thing to happen will probably be one of the belugas giving birth since she is due any day now. She is on 24 hour a day watch so that whenever labor starts everyone in the department (including us interns!) gets a call at home to come in and watch. I’m really excited about it since we get front row seats, I just hope it’s not at like 3am because I’m already tired enough at work in the mornings! I’ll be sure to take a ton of pictures of the baby when that happens and post them for everyone.
Vancouver is still as great as ever- very hot for the city this week, it’s been in the 80s every day. Since there’s no humidity here it’s been absolutely perfect weather for me. I sat outside and read at Coal Harbor (10 minutes from my apt.) for hours this week. It’s also been more fun because I’ve discovered the 19-25 crowd at the aquarium to hang out with! It’s one of the whale’s 1st birthday next week so the trainers will throw a big party then, which should be great. Last but not least I love where I live! The cats are amazing and really friendly and the place is in a great location and very well furnished and beautiful.
That’s pretty much everything I can think of, I have tomorrow off so I will probably give some of you a buzz to catch up! Oh, and I posted some pictures of my sublet and the cats if you want to see where I’m living:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2015198&id=1322040101&l=7b7399e4a9
(I hope that was enough distraction from work for one day Di-Di)
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