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:)