The Whistle

March Madness has officially begun! My bracket is filled out and of course I have Michigan State going all the way. I can't turn my back to my alma mater even though they have been placed in the bracket of death with a bunch of other big-wig teams! So as I watch the first round games I will share with you all my exciting week!

On Tuesday, I had to the chance to shadow another department at the aquarium. I chose to follow around one of the veterinary interns at the aquarium and see what veterinary medicine is like at an aquarium. We started our rounds doing physicals on the stranding seals. At Mystic Aquarium, they have a stranding department where they take in marine mammals and rehabilitate them back to health prior to release. Currently, the stranding department has 4 grey seal pups. They are all so cute and have the biggest eyes! Since these pups are wild, untrained animals with super sharp teeth, physicals are limited. So once the seals were restrained, just blood samples were taken and their lungs and heart beat were listened to. I was lucky enough to listen to one to the pups heart beat and lungs! Next on the appointment list was a sick lizard. It's a filled lizard and was having digestive issues and regurgitating his food. So the vet gave him some sub-cutaneous fluids and some medicine to help pass food. After that we had to investigate the cause of death of a fish. So I got to experience my first fish necropsy. Interesting I know. They scrapped an abrasion around the fish gill and looked at it under a microscope. And low and behold we determined the cause of death to be flukes -- which is a parasite. It was what the vet had believed based on observations. So I got to see what parasitic flukes look like -- pretty gnarly. And then to top off the dead fish, we went to examine a fish with an infected eye. Who would of thought eye surgery could be conducted on fish?! But its possible and that fishes eye was so bad looking that the vet had to schedule to a time to get it removed. Too bad I wasn't able to witness the fish eye surgery! In the afternoon we took a trip to my territory for a whale ultrasound. Its currently breeding season for the belugas, so the vets are keeping a close eye on follicle development in their ovaries. We examined Naku and discovered she had a nice size follicle developing in one of her ovaries. Our final stop on the veterinary rounds was with the stellar sea lions at PI. I got to go on PI's beach for the first time and see how they feed and interact with sea lions. Then I got to see a session with Kodiak, which is the largest sea lion on exhibit. He is massive! And everytime I hear his name, I always think of the movie 'Surfs Up' when all the penguins say "cody cody cody cody". But anyways he was getting a mock injection to help build up that husbandry behavior so he can take needle sticks for blood or meds if need be. Overall, it was a super awesome and fun day. I got to see many different aspects of marine animal care at the aquarium and see animals I really haven't gotten a chance to see since I have been there.

But on to the more exciting news that every whale intern strives for. On Wednesday I was scheduled to take my 'whistle exam'. This is just a simple and easy quiz they give to the whale interns to make sure they understand the basics of training and how its applied. So I took my exam and it was like being back in school. A lot of pressure to obtain a little, but very important, whistle. I finished my 'exam' and turned it in to my mentor and we went over the answers. She was extremely pleased with my answers and said I had passed. And in her hand was my shiny new whistle! I could not help but be in awe with a perma-smile glued on my face! I never thought I would be so excited over a whistle but its a big deal! I now can feel like a trainer and have endless possibilities with behaviors! It was like an award ceremony and Lynn my mentor placed the whistle on the lanyard around my neck like I was receiving a medal! And everyone clapped and congratulated me! It felt so weird yet so good to have that whistle around my neck -- I couldn't help but just stare at it in amazement! So then during the next feeding schedule, I actually got to use my whistle as a bridge on the whales. My whistles were a little soft to begin with but as soon I get use it more and get more comfortable with it, they will become nice clean whistle bridges! Its definitely fun having the power of the whistle! I now have a good excuse to go shopping and look for the perfect lanyard for my whistle!