Some of my fondest memories of volunteering at the Aquarium of the Pacific come from the impromptu enrichment swims that we use to do in the Seal and Sea Lion Exhibit. I remember floating in the water nose to nose with a sea lion only inches away from my mask as we both lazily bobbed just under the surface with the critter looking upon me with a gaze of familiarity that only comes from years of working with an animal.
Milo and Harpo are still working hard with their trainers on new behaviors and living it up in their home behind-the-scenes.
Remember the part in the movie Finding Nemo when the gramma freaked out when Nemo told them that he was from the ocean? Then the cleaner shrimp cleaned Nemo and all was well? If only disinfecting fish were that simple in real life! Though cleaner shrimps do help with cleaning their fellow aquarium inhabitants, they are not miracle workers. That is where we as aquarists come in. We must quarantine and medicate new arrivals to ensure their health and the health of the overall fish community they will be living with.
More than half a ton of trash disappeared from the streets of Long Beach on a recent Saturday morning as about 340 people helped pick up refuse in the Downtown Long Beach area surrounding Cesar Chavez Park.
For those of you who wonder what I actually do during my Saturday marine mammal shift at the Aquarium of the Pacific, this week’s blog is a rundown of my day.
| February 2008 | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| S | M | T | W | T | F | S |
| 1 | 2 | |||||
| 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 |
| 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 |
| 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 |
| 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | |
