A to B's

Wow, its been awhile since my last post! This week has kept me super busy at work and everyday has been packed with things to do (but in a good way of course). I have almost put a month's worth in the internship and I can't believe it! This week, I have been working on A to B's with the whales. A to B's are when you send the whale to someone else in a different part of the exhibit. Once again, Inuks is fairly easy to pick up since it is similar to his point follow signals. Naku and Kelas are a bit different but I'm starting to get the hang of them.

I have been doing quite alot of solo feeds which have been going swimmingly. I get to bring out lots of fun toys to play with and I feel like I am keeping pace with the trainers as far as bucket levels go. The other day Kela was very spooked and easily startled during the day for some odd reason. When she was having a training/feeding session with one of the volunteers, she ended up swimming off for a minute. I was scheduled to have a session with her near the end of the day so I was a bit worried that she was going to do the same for me. But she ended up doing amazing! She was extremely engaged and vocal in the session and I tried to make it as fun as possible for her with props and variety in the feeding. Also the supervisor was watching me during that session and she said I have come a long way already and she can tell I am more confident and comfortable with things and was doing a great job. Sweet!

The weather here is crazy and unpredictable..much like Michigan! Monday it was like a monsoon with wind and heavy rains but it was super warm (a high of 52). Today the cold swept in bringing with it a small blizzard. Snow began to collect everywhere after it just melted away. But it looked pretty nonetheless. And tomorrow its supposed to be a high of 20. 20. My fingers may be suffer frost bite and freeze off during feeds tomorrow.

Well, this weekend looks like its going ot be a blast. My Aunt Gertie Bomb is coming up for a couple days for my birthday and we are going to check out Cape Cod!

Bridges

Saturdays always seem to be the best days of the work week. Maybe because its technically my 'Friday', but its fun to see the aquarium come to life and actually have more than 10 visitors a day! I got to visit with each of the whales during the training sessions and work on my point follows with them. I'm pretty sure I have those down to a T now! Lynn (my awesome mentor) introduced me to bridging today too. This is a hand signal (or a whistle for experienced trainers) that is given to the whales to tell them to basically stop doing a behavior because they have done it correctly and will receive a fishy reward. I got to practice bridging during my attention thresholds I have been working on with each of the whales and during point follows.

I was a little skeptical when assigned to work with Kela today. This morning she was miss grumpy gills and seemed to be having a bad morning. When I was brushing the exhibit pools, she was being aggressive towards the brush pole and jaw popping at it (which is a sign of aggression). Then later on in the morning she 'yelled' at Naku for some odd reason. But when I got to work with her one-on-one for our feeding session, she seemed perfectly fine. In fact, it was one of the best sessions I have had with her so far! She stuck around a lot longer than normal for tongue rubs which I was very happy about since shes the one its takes a while for her to warm up to newbies.

No new pictures to post this time :(

Pine Cones and Point Follows

My weekend is fast approaching and once again I'm having a super fun work week! I am getting the hang of toy play sessions with the whales and thinking of different things to incorporate into the sessions to add more variety and fun for the whales. It's definitely a lot easier to extend the session times and keep pace with the other trainers now that I am able to use toys instead of free feed the whole time. On Wednesday, while cleaning the exhibit, Inuk brought me a special surprise. He swam over to me in hopes of getting some tongue rubs and I happened to notice something in his mouth. It slightly resembled a piece of poop. But I reached in his mouth and pulled out a slobbery pine cone. Its almost like he purposely put it in his mouth to get my attention and get tongue rub reinforcement. It was like a dog bringing over a stick!

Over this week I have been working on point follows, which are hand signals that you give to move the whales to different location. Both the females (Naku and Kela) have the same hand signals but Inuk has a totally different hand signal. The girls hand signals are a little more confusing because you do the hand signal in the opposite direction you want to go. So if I wanted to move Naku to the right, I would have to give the signal with my left hand. For Inuk, his signals are directional. If I want to take him left, I give the signal with my left hand. But I'm sure after I do the signals for awhile I will get the hang of it and it will all become natural.

I have noticed the whales starting to play favorites. Just like the trainers said, "pretty soon the whales will tend to pick you over the volunteers." And sure enough it has started! A volunteer who was helping feed Naku today got in a couple tongue rubs before Naku left and followed me around to get tongue rubs from me! To have her come to me when I had nothing to do with her training and feeding session was quiet amazing!

I don't have any more pictures from the aquarium, but I will leave you with the sunset I saw coming home today! Another thing Connecticut has going for it...the sunrises and sunsets! And you can also see the San Francisco-esque street I live on!

Play Time

I started my third week at the aquarium already! Today, most of the other interns started in the PI department. The PI stands for Pribilof Islands which is the exibits that deal with sea lions, seals and penguins. It works closely with the AC department, the Arctic Coast exhibit with the whales, which is what I am in. I am the only intern with the AC department which is kind of nice because I get more one-on-one time with each of the trainers. The PI department will have 4 interns total which is quite a lot especially for the winter session! Anyways, today I was introduced to toy play with the whales during their feeding sessions. This makes for a much more fun and interactive feeding session for both us and the whales. So I had lots of fun today playing with different toys and I think the whales enjoyed it too! They, especially Naku, were very vocal and responded well to the different toys! The only tough part is trying to think of different creative ideas and ways to use the toys and not be repetitive. I think the whales are starting to know who I am and getting more comfortable with my presence. Today as I was taking down some window decals that were put up as some visual enrichment, Inuk came over to check things out and wanted my to give him some tongue rubs! It was too cute!

My 'weekend' -- consisting of Sundays and Mondays -- was spent traveling around. On Sunday, I went with the family I'm staying with to Trader Joes. We had to go all the way to Warwick, Rhode Island to get there too (which is about 45 minutes away). I've only been to the one in Chicago once or twice. So this one was a lot quieter and I could actually look around a bit and not get pushed around by crowds of people like in Chicago. They have alot of organic type food which is something I usually don't buy, but all their other stuff is nice and cheap! I picked up some soups to bring to lunch and some snack foods. I should have picked up some 2 buck chuck...oh well I can always go back later to get some!

Yesterday I visited the town of Groton which is the town across the river from New London. Its known as the submarine capital of the world and made the worlds first nuclear powered submarine in the 50's. I managed to find the Wal-Mart where I got some pictures developed. I also found one of the beaches. And of course the day I decide to see a beach, its super windy and cold. But it was still pretty and there are alot of rocky islands off the shore.

Well I think that is enough for one post! Enjoy some pictures!

Lighthouse in the middle of the river with New London in the background

Rocky island off the shore

The Ocean

Solo feeding

I am officially able to free feed the whales by myself, unsupervised! I was checked off today on the full feeds and did my first solo feeding session! It went really great and Inuk my buddy was a champ. I was able to keep pace with the other trainers during the session which happened to be a longer training session. Since I am strictly full feeding and the other trainers are working certain behaviors and feeding every so often, I have to be sure not to overfeed to quickly or run out of fish before everyone else. But it went really well and I was able to work on Inuks attention threshold a little bit. I was able to get him up to 10 seconds of waiting patiently for his fish and reinforcement. I think next week we are going to start incorporating toys into the feeding session :) I also got to help with an ultrasound on Naku today. Since its breeding season, a lot of ultrasounds are performed to look at the follicle developments in Naku and Kela.

The aquarium was hopin' today. There were a lot of people out and oodles of kid running about. There must have been an overnight sleepover with a boy scout troop last night. Lucky them they got to sleep right next to the shark lagoon!
My weekend is here and I will leave you with some exciting pictures from around Mystic Aquarium!

Stingray

Turtle

Clown Fish (Nemo's)

Full Feeds

Well, I have been here in Connecticut over a week now but it really doesn't seem like it. I am getting the routines down at work and getting more comfortable doing them on my own. This week I have been on full feeds with all the whales. This means I am in charge of picking up the whale I am assigned for the session and feeding them on my own (with someone watching of course). I am getting better with my fish aiming skills and learning different ways to feed the whales to make it a funner feeding session! While full feeding, I am learning the different bucket levels and call those out every once and a while. Bucket levels are a way the trainers communicate to one another during sessions to make sure everyone is at about the same point and no one is too far behind.

Today during the feeding sessions, I worked on the whales attention spans. The goal is to hold their attention (with no props or anything) for as long as possible and then reinforce them. For both Kela and Naku, I was able to reach 8 seconds and they responded very well. They were both very attentive and stationed very nicely. I was especially happy with Kelas session and how I was able to keep her attention for the 8 seconds. Kela is a little more reserved when it comes to new people and it tends to take her a little longer to open up and trust new people. So me being able to keep her interested and have her patiently wait 8 seconds for a food reinforcement was a great step in building her trust!

I started my research project too this week. I am kind of continuing an interns research from last semester dealing with respiration rates. I observe the whales for 10 minutes 3 times a day and record how many times each whale takes a breath. Then, over time I will look and see if there is any changes and it will help to establish a nice baseline respiration rate for each of the whales for the aquarium to have and know.

Naku

Tongue rubs for Inuk

Thats all the updates I have for today! Tomorrow its supposed to get into the 40's here! Woo heat wave!

Dunkaroos

Since I didn't have to work yesterday or today, I decided to hit the town and do some exploring. When my mom, Aunt Beth, and Gertie Bomb were here, we did some sight-seeing around Mystic and went to see the worlds largest casino -- Foxwoods -- where we donated some money sadly and drove up and down the parking ramp for at least 15 minutes trying to find an exit. So I decided to try and learn my way around the towns a bit and not look like such a tourist (despite the fact I am probably one of few cars with a Michigan license plate). I did successfully find downtown Mystic with the help of my GPS of course. The town of Mystic is really a neat place. It reminds me alot of Mackinac Island, but with cars and less horse poop. They have alot of really cool shops right near the water and an old drawbridge that was made in the 1920's I believe. I'm sure this place is hoppin' once spring/summer comes around.

Mystic River

The Drawbridge

The highlight of my day had to come from my trip to the grocery store. I was in desperate need of groceries and needed things for lunches this coming week. As I'm cruising the aisles with my 'buggy' (as they are referred to around here), something caught my eye hidden on the bottom corner of the shelf. Low and behold it was...wait for it...Dunkaroos! One of thee greatest snacks ever created! I mean kangaroo shaped cookies with frosting to dip them in...it doesn't get any better! This was my all time favorite snack during my elementary school days! They are nowhere to be found in stores back home. Because of this, Connecticut was bumped up a couple more notches in awesome-ness!

Well my weekend is officially over and its back to work in the AM!

Week 1 Under My Belt

So many of you have asked for updates on my adventure and how things are going with the internship. So I set up this blog for all your reading pleasures! Just a little background on the internship I am doing. I intern at Mystic Aquarium and Institute for Exploration in Mystic, CT with the beluga whales. Mystic Aquarium has 3 whales; Kela, Naku, and the only male Inuk.

During this week, I have already learned how to do so many things that I would have never imagined doing! I have learned most of the daily routines done around the aquarium. Brushing and cleaning the exhibit is much like cleaning the pool back home only on a much larger and deeper scale. I knew all those years of cleaning the pool would come in handy! I have learned to prepare the diets, stuff meds in the fish, and check the fish. There are 3 different types of fish that is fed to the whales: herring, capelin, and yummy squid. Each fish in the whales feeding bucket must be examined for any cuts or tears in the skin that could potentially harbor bacteria. I have already given all 3 whales tongue rubs! How awesome is that?! I would have never thought by my second day I would be patting a belugas tongue!

Today was an amazing feeding day! I was able to feed and visit with each of the whales throughout the day. I learned how to vary feedings to make it more fun for the whales. You can throw a couple fish into their mouths, place some fish into their mouths, throw fish in one by one, or holding a fist-full underwater and having them suck the fish in. Its like they're underwater hoovers. Today, I was also put in charge of semi-starting the training session and picking up my assigned whale. Each whale has been trained to go to an assigned shape after a training/feeding session has been started. Its sooo awesome to see how these whales are getting used to me being around and beginning to trust me a little more each day. They all have different personalities that I am starting to pick up on! Also today, during one of the feeding sessions I was dive bombed by a sea gull. I had dropped a fish onto the ground and that dang seagull spotted it and moved in for the kill scaring both poor Naku and myself!

One week has gone by already and each day seems to get better and better! And before I know it I'll be able to start doing behaviors myself! Its time to call it a night and wrap up this blog premiere!