When I'm not working......

.....I'm still at the aquarium!! Or at least in Mystic. On Tuesday I went for a wander around the quaint little town. I cant get over how insanely nice everyone is around here. They smile and say hello to total strangers. I am definitely not in the "fuck you state" anymore. As I was wandering I stumbled upon a coldstone!!!!! I have not had the wonderfullness of the creamy chunky amazingness in over a year....its the little things in life. I also explored a large cemetery near Mystic Seaport. I found a bench overlooking the river and found it to be amazingly peaceful. Yes, I am a freak who finds peace with the deceased (haha that kinda rhymes). Unfortunately this peace was soon shattered when I discovered that my credit card had escaped from my possession:( But then everything was alright again when I wandered around New London and found the river and train station (I am still perplexed by people saying hi to me, I don't know these people, what do they want from me? Do they know something that I don't? Is there something in the water here? Is Jersey really just the nastiest state in the world in which everyone just hates everyone that the don't, or even do, know?)

On Friday I spent the day at the aquarium. I wandered around it taking pictures of all the exhibits and, of course, the whale feedings. At lunch time I tagged along with the trainers to a cute little pizza place and had some fantastic bbq pizza which Alyssa introduced me to. After the 130 session Sasha broke out her guitar and Kate broke out her voice for a jam out sessions for the whales and Kodiak the massive stellar sea lion. All in all it has been a great week. I am loving everything about being here (except for sirens at night and boring days off). Can't wait for tomorrow!!!

So much to talk about

Everyday is a new day at the aquarium. There are always a variety of enrichment available for the whales, varied feeding sessions, new things that I am being introduced to, as well as a hodge podge of shenanigans. This past week Lindsey worked with me to begin feeding the whales. I am currently doing paired feedings in which I feed about half and Lindsey feeds about half. It is challenging when I feed since I have no behaviors, toys, or secondary reinforcers to use for the sessions so I have to find different ways to stretch the sessions and vary them up. Ways to this include: holding the fish underwater, standing up and throwing the fish to the whale, and putting the fish through the hole in the bucket topper. The more I get to feed the more comfortable I am becoming with the whales (as well as them becoming more comfortable with me). I was also introduced to stationing and ending the session. At the start of each session 3 whistles are blown. This is a signal to the whales that it is feeding time. Upon hearing the signal each whale seeks out and targets their assigned shape (with the exception of Juno who is currently being trained to do this). Naku is a circle, Kela is an X, and Juno is learning a whale tail. Once the whale has targeted their shape they get two pats and the melon and the session starts. Once a session has ended, when there are no more fish, the trainer waves their arm over the bucket which communicates to the whales that there is no more food.

On Wednesday I actually got to do a whole mini-session with Kela. Every Monday and Wednesday there are divers in the pool at the end of the day. Because of this the whales are gated in the holding pool. To provide some reinforcement for being gated a smaller, shorter session is done with the whales after their usual 5:00 feed-it consists of only about 30 fish. Lindsey let me do Kela's feed during this. I got to station her with her X, feed her throughout the session, and end her session. During the session it is also important to communicate bucket levels with the other trainers. This allows everyone to keep at the same pace and end at the same time so that there is no competition for food. Kela was great during her session. She was very attentive, vocalized, and even stayed for a couple of tongue rubs. Later that night was volunteer appreciation night. I never realized how many volunteers there were-over 500!!! It was held in the indoor part of the aquarium where all the fish, sharks, and rays are (amongst other fun sea creatures). It had some fantastic food, which is always a plus!! It was hard finding people at first, but I eventually found the AC crew and hung around for about 2-hours. I also met Kayla who is a volunteer I met on facebook (she works on Fridays which is one of my days off). It was a great day which ended in my apartment losing electricity for about 15 hours. Since I am too cheap to buy new food dont be surprised if I die of food poisoning.

On Thursday I got the opportunity to plan enrichment for the day. Enrichment can include anything tactile, visual, or audio related. The Whale Enrichment Team (WET Team) does enrichment for the whales in the morning before their first feeding. After that the whales get enrichment after every feeding except for the last one. For yesterday's enrichment I planned out for the whales to get deflated bouys (they get thrown into the water), shakers (basically us walking around the beach with marraccas), sprinkler (they have a sprinkler that they can use, I actually dont know how this went down since I was talking training with Lindsey), and basketballs at cobbles windows (bouncing basketballs at one of the viewing windows).

More went down today, but I am sick of typing:)

Best.Job.Ever

It is hard to believe that after all the hard work, resume/cover letter reviews, advisory arguments, classes, papers, phone calls, panic attacks, applications, interviews, apartment searching......its hard to believe that after all of that I am finally here. It is so amazing to say that I am a Beluga Whale Husbandry Intern at Mystic Aquarium, Institute for Exploration. I have wanted this more than anything for as long as I can remember. Is it fate that the first cetacean I ever saw in person was a beluga whale? Probably not, but its a cool thing to say. Anyway I am writing this blog in order to keep everyone updated. So many people want to know EVERYTHING and quite frankly I dont feel like calling everyone and having people give people false information. Soooooo where to begin?? Why not the beginning!!!!

So my first day was just a general orientation. No sexual harassment kids!!!! I then got the chance to go to the back-up area of the beluga and PI (pribolof islands) teams. It was there that I met some of the trainers including Lindsey who is my awesome mentor, and Alyssa who is the current intern. Lindsey allowed me to go on the beach while the whale were in session. It was amazing to watch the whales and trainers in action. I then decided to wander around the aquarium (although I had already done that the previous day, but you can never get too much of whales, sea lions, penguins, and fishies). Let me just say that Mystic Aquarium is awesome. The exhibits are incredible, the animals are content and healthy, and the people are phenomonal. I could spend all day everyday just walking around the aquarium and watching the goings on. Anyhoo, the next day was my first day. I met the trainers Kate, Kelly, Kim, Sasha, and Justin who are all amazing (actually I didnt meet everyone that day but that is just a list of all the trainers I met). I also met the volunteers Lila and Barret who are equally kick ass. It was really hectic because they were doing the last of an online live broadcast series. Lindsey was up in the studio hosting the broadcast so I followed Alyssa around that day. If anyone wants to watch the broadcast got to immersionlearning.org or mysticaquarium.org. I watched her, as well as other trainers do feedings with the whales. There are 3 whales: Kela, Naku, and Juno. Kela and Naku are both 28 year old females and Juno is the newest whale (he arrived in January) and is a 7 year old male. I will talk more about the individual whales once I know them better. While observing the sessions Alyssa let me do tongue rubs on Kela and Naku, the whales LOVE to have their tongue rubs and give the coolest vocalization during them and the feedings. During one of the sessions I had the awesome privilege of going into the lip. The lip is where guests can go waste deep into the water with the whales for interactions. It was sooooo amazing being in the water with one of the whales (Kela to be exact). Along with all the whale sessions I also learned maintenence routines (such as cleaning the beach and the weir). And cleaning/sorting fish. Each fish gets examined to make sure it is in perfect quality for the whales. It was a 10-hour day, but it definitely did not feel like it!!!

The other two days I have worked so far have basically been the same. I get to observe every feeding session (and both of the other days I got to go into the lip again!!!!!!!) which allows me to learn about the individual whales, how to handle them, bucket levels (more about that later), trainer communication, etc. I am becoming more comfortable with the cleaning routines and fish prep. I will soon get signed off on these so that I can go ahead and do all of these on my own. I also met more volunteers-Hilary and Bill, and they are of course amazing like everyone else there. The trainer Justin also took the time to show me all of the filtration apparatus. It is amazing to see all of the equipment and chemicals that are necessary to keep the aquarium going. He taught me how to re-fill the chemical soda ash into the system which helps the water filter and bicarb which is another chemical (ok so I dont remember exactly what everything does but its important and part of what I will be doing on a day to day basis). When I use these chemicals I have to wear gloves and a funny face mask so I dont burn my hands or fuck up my insides. Yesterday Lindsey let me feed the whales during the sessions. She would pass them off to me so I could toss some fish into their squishy mouths (they get a diet of caplin, squid, herring, and mackerel). It is so amazing that I got to feed whales on my third day. I also learned how to give them a visual bridge (pointing at them). A bridge is a secondary reinforcer that lets an animal know that they are doing a good job and reinforcement will be coming (this is what clicker training is-the clicker is the bridge). It allows a trainer to pin point the correct behavior as soon as it occurs which leads to a more successful training session. I did this every so often to get myself used to doing the bridge, I was basically reinforcing them for being attentive. On one of the sessions I got to do the end of session signal for Kela (waving my arm over the bucket). This tells the whale that the session is over and that there are no more fish. However, Kela and Naku usually stay for tongue rubs anyway:)

So as you can tell I am LOVING my internship. I hate having days off (like right now) and do not mind having a 530 wake-up call. I cannot wait to post more on my internship.

Happy reading!!!!!!!!!!