Aquarium of the Pacific | Aquarium Blogs | Hugh
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.
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.
Back in the summer of 1999, a visitor watching our sea lions swim past the pinniped tunnel at the Aquarium of the Pacific mentioned to me that she had taken a vacation up to Hearst Castle recently and while there had seen elephant seals resting on the beach. She noticed that a few had faded orange tags on their flippers and that one of the seals had a tag that read 3709. The number sounded familiar so I looked it up in my records. It was quite a revelation. The seal that the woman saw on the beach was “Mac”, an elephant seal that I helped track by satellite two years before. I thought it might be cool to share with everyone the details of Mac’s voyage that year.
On June 23, 2000, an ecological disaster occurred when the ore carrier MV Treasure sank off the coast of South Africa between Dassen and Robben Islands near Cape Town which supported two of the largest colonies of the African Penguin (Spheniscus demerus) in the world. Tens of thousands of penguins were in danger of dying from the oil that was surrounding their breeding beaches. A cry went out worldwide to zoos and aquariums for assistance. They sought the expertise of these facilities to help deal with this disaster. The Aquarium of the Pacific responded to the call by sending their aviculturist Karen Anderson.
Going on a whale watching trip with the aquarium? Want to know what you might see? Worried about seasickness? Here are some tips from an avid whale watcher.
A husbandry volunteer since before the Aquarium opened (a Charter Volunteer), Hugh is a jack-of-all-trades who loves to spend his time with animals and shares his adventures via his photographs and tales.
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