Whale Tales: 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