Jellyfish or Plastic Bag???

To celebrate World Ocean's Day on June 8th we helped kids visiting the Alaska SeaLife Center make Jellyfish in a Bottle! These creations are made out of recycled plastic drink bottles and plastic shopping bags.  

Step 1: Make the Jellies

Cut out a square from a plastic shopping bag, gather the middle up to make the bell of the jelly, and take a small piece of string and tie the bell in place. Then, cut the remaining piece into thin tentacles. And you have your jelly! 

Step 2: Put the Jelly in Your Bottle

Pick out a plastic bottle and place the jelly inside, bell side first. 

Step 3: Just Add Water

Fill the bottle all the way to the top with water. To make it pop, pick out your favorite color of food dye and add a couple drops! Then, securely glue on the cap and you have your jellyfish in a bottle! Flip the bottle upside down and back again to watch your jellyfish swim!

We had a fantastic time making these Jellies!!! It was a great way to recycle plastic bottles and bags and raise awareness of plastic marine debris. Marine debris is any man-made material that makes its way into the oceans. Most marine debris is made up of plastic and can become a life-threatening hazard for wildlife. As you can see, plastic shopping bags can look a great deal like a jellyfish and animals that eat jellies, like the critically endangered leatherback sea turtle, often eat plastic bags by mistake and pay the ultimate price for it. You can help by reducing your use of plastic materials: buy products that use limited plastic packaging, or none at all, use reusable shopping bags, and don't forget to recycle.

A shout-out to our wonderful volunteers who helped us collect all our materials and all the kids who came and made this a successful project! 

Scheffler Creek Restoration: A How-To Guide

Scheffler Creek Stream Bank Restoration

ASLC AmeriCorps June Service Project

Step 1: The Prep
Scheffler Creek is located in town amid apartment buildings and culverts. However, it is also an important habitat for spawning salmon. Our goal with this project was to revegetate eroded areas of the stream bank to provide more habitat and prevent trampling. Krista joined in on the planning of this project midway with her weekly volunteer service at the Resurrection Bay Conservation Alliance (RBCA). Building up to the big day, she helped talk about the project at Seward Elementary and collect the willow cuttings used in the brush layering method.

Krista at Seward Elementary.

Step 2: Get Dirty

The name of the game is stream bank stabilization. Weapons of choice were coir (biodegradable) log, spikes, shovels, sledgehammers. The eroded area was surrounded by beach grass but had become quite the gravelly slope. So to start us off, we dug a ditch for the coir log to act as the foot of our soon-to-be matching stream bank.

Kira and Sara getting the coir log staked. 

Step 3: More Ditch Digging
Enter the willow cuttings. After we dug another ditch uphill of the log, we had to lay lots of willow cuttings that will act as an anchor when their roots start to grow. It's actually pretty impressive that you can keep willow cuttings on ice from March until June, plant them, and enjoy. This part is where the name 'brush layering' comes from; we had a total of two layers on top of the log, then topped off by grass.

The team digging another ditch.

Step 4: Play Dead

Man down.

Step 5: The Scheffler Creek Shuffle

Turns out the willow need water. And the dirt needs to be packed down. This is where our cumulative 94 years of mudpie making experience really came in handy. 

Krista adding water.

Kira making mud.

Kasi and Krista Stomping

Step 6: Grass Transplants
Once the layers were in and the ground was even, we transplanted Beach Grass from the surrounding area to help cover the fresh topsoil. Fencing and signs block off the area to prevent further trampling while it's fresh. The light penetrating fish viewing platform will go in next month to prevent the area from being ruined again.

Brush layering and getting ready to transplant.

Thank you to all the volunteers and organizations involved!

Cleaning up the Beaches

On May 19th, we worked with a team of volunteers mobilized by the Resurrection Bay Conservation Alliance to clean up some of Seward's beaches. And there was a lot to clean up!

We put our boots on, crawled into the stream and came back with dozens of beer bottles and cans, plastic bags and wrappers, and much more. Everything that ends up in this stream will make its way to the ocean where animals like sea birds, sea otters, and whales could ingest the trash or become entangled by it. You don't have to be near the ocean for this to be the case. All animals require freshwater in one way or another and will frequent streams, creek, rivers, lakes, ponds, etc.. It is important that trash and pollution stay out in order to have healthy wild animal populations wherever you are.

It took over 2 hours and 2 people to clean all the nails and glass pieces out of this one fire pit! I don't know about you, but I like to walk the beach barefoot, but if you had tried to walk barefoot on this beach, you would have ended up needing stitches!

Our crew worked hard for hours to clean up two beaches. And we found some interesting things:

Someone lost a shoe . . .

. . . and their golf bag carrier.

Don't forget the frozen yogurt maker!

And . . .

perhaps the evidence of a romantic beach proposal gone wrong?

All in all, it was hard work but the results were amazing! We'd like to thank Resurrection Bay Conservation Alliance for organizing this endeavor and all the volunteers that spent their Saturday picking up trash. The beaches looked great after we were done!

You can help too! Ensure that your trash makes it into a trash can. If you see trash on the ground, pick it up and throw it away!

The Day in the Life of a Marine Mammal Trainer: AmeriCorps Style

Alaska SeaLife Center

Welcome to a day in the life of a marine mammal trainer, AmeriCorps style!! I want to give a little insight about what goes on in a typical day in the mammal department. Each day is different, but here is an overview of some of the aspects of this type of work. Enjoy!  

Our facilities at the Alaska SeaLife Center for marine mammals include harbor seal exhibit, Steller sea lion exhibit, two indoor holding pools, and 3 large outdoor pools. We currently house six Steller sea lions, four harbor seals, and one ring seal.



 

    Steller Sea Lion Exhibit                            Harbor Seal Exhibit                                            Indoor Holding Pool

To start the day off, we must prepare the food for all the animals in the Alaska SeaLife Center! This is called food prep. We have anywhere from 2-4 people who arrive at 7am to prepare the food for the day. In the beginning stages of food prep, we do animal checks first thing in the morning. This is where we go and inspect all collection animals in our department to assure they are safe and healthy. We prepare a different assortment and amounts of fish each day of the week. The type of fish we prepare is herring, pollock, capelin, pink salmon, and squid.

Squid

Pollock

Herring

Pink Salmon

To begin, we start water thawing fish that has been air thawing in a fridge for the past 24 hours. It is then placed into sinks or containers where we run cold water over the fish until fully thawed. Fish is not allowed to run dry (with no water continuously running over it) during thawing process. After fish is broken out for the day, we do breakout for the next day. Quantity and types of fish used are different from day to day. For breakout, we put fish needed for the next day out of the freezer and into the fridge to air thaw.

Freezer of Food Supply

After the appropriate cleaning duties are performed, it is time to sort the fish! Each and every fish is then inspected. The food we serve our animals are held to restaurant quality standards. To assure we reach this standard, fish that are damaged by having cuts, missing parts, abrasions, or bruises are sorted  out and not used. We inspect every fish that we breakout. It is ALOT OF FISH! Not only are fish sorted, but the first round of food distribution buckets are made for the day. After

Break-Out

fish have been sorted, more cleaning begins! Everyday consists of a weekly cleaning task for that day. Along with the weekly task, we do daily tasks such as scrubbing all surface areas including walls, floors and shelves, grinding bad fish, taking out recycling and trash, and washing dishes. This process takes

Bad Fish Sorted Out

about two hours. After food prep, there is a morning meeting for all animal departments to discuss the schedule for the day. Then, it is off to start the rest  of the day!

Sorting Fish & Making First Round of Buckets

First feed rounds are usually completed in food prep. After first feeds are given out during training sessions, we do the appropriate daily duties for this time of day. This may include deep cleaning the fridge, cleaning foot baths and work area materials, scrubbing bars and cages, and so on. The second round of feed buckets are made shortly after all training session are completed with first feeds.

Time to clean!!

Scrubbing Outdoor Pool

Our collection animals consists of 6 Steller sea lions, 4 harbor seals, and one ring seal. Due to research permits, photographs of our sea lions are not permitted online unless the photos are taken from public areas.

In our collection, we have two male Steller sea lions. Our oldest male is name Woody who is 19 years-old. Woody was born at Maggott Island, Canada. He was collected along with one of our female Steller sea lions, named Sugar, to serve as research animals. They were hand raised at Vancouver Aquarium before they came to Seward. When Woody first arrived at the Alaska SeaLife Center, he weighed around 500 lbs. and now reaches over 2200 lbs. every summer. Eden and Tasu are female Stellers that came from the Vancouver Aquarium and were collected in the summer of 2000 as research animals. They both arrived at the Alaska SeaLife Center on January 12th, 2011. Sitka is a female Steller that was born in June of 2006 at the Dolfinarium in Harderwijk (The Netherlands). Pilot, a juvenile  male Steller, also came from the Dolfinarium. They both arrived at the Alaska SeaLife Center on March 24th, 2011. Pilot was captive born  in June 2009 and is a brother to Sitka. Sitka, Tasu, Eden and Pilot have come to us so that they can be incorporated into our breeding program.

Snapper

For our in-house harbor seals, our oldest is a male name Snapper. He was born on June 21, 1984 which makes him 28 years old! Snapper was captive born at Mystic Aquarium. He has been at the Alaska SeaLife Center since its opening in 1998. Atuun was born in June of 2005 on Smith Island, AK. She was collected by the Alaska SeaLife Center to serve as research animal. Atuun is a native word meaning "song." Atuun gave birth to a pup this past summer, 2011, named Kordelia. She is also currently pregnant and is expected to give birth any day.  Kordelia is the second marine mammal to be born at the Alaska SeaLife  Center. Snapper is the father of Kordelia and our soon to be born pup.

Atty (mom) & Kordelia (pup)

Our last collection animal is Napa. Napa is a ring seal (ice seal) that came to us from Nome as a stranded animal. She was born this past summer in 2011 and has begun to learn new behaviors along with Kordelia. Napa was 5.5 kg when she first arrived at the Alaska SeaLife Center and now weighs 20.6 kg. She will not be released back into the wild but will eventually be incorporated into acoustic research.

              

                Napa in Rehabilitation Center
         Summer 2011

Kordelia (left) & Napa (right)

Washing work area floors.

Enrichment is an important and necessary part of the collection animals lives. We use enrichment to provide variety to their lives beyond daily training sessions and to encourage naturalistic behaviors. It gives positive mental and physical stimulation for the animal without producing any unnecessary stress. Enrichment can range from habitat configuration, social interactions, and enrichment devices. We have a variety of enrichment items including large balls, ice toys, fire hoses, and live fish for feeds. We have an enrichment board to not only keep track of where all enrichment items are located, but to help with disinfecting procedures and safety guidelines. We provide enrichment for our animals at least once each day!!

Woody watching Finding Nemo!

Iceberg enrichment for Napa (ice seal)

Napa & Kordelia with some
enrichment items

Napa experiencing a food toy

Tongass Painting Enrichment

Snapper Food Toy Enrichment

Let's Clean!

Fish scales? Oh no! Put some elbow grease into it!

Daily Tasks Board

Every day consists of daily tasks that need to be completed. These duties have different timely needs since some tasks need to be done once a month and others every other day. As we complete tasks, we check them off. Examples of these duties include cleaning floors, cleaning pools, disinfecting materials, rotating enrichment toys, power spraying, scrubbing, taking water quality, scrubbing drains, and....more cleaning! These tasks are important to keep the department running smoothly and up to standards. Many people think training is a glamorous job, but it is a lot of cleaning and hard, messy work! 

I don't want to put too much on here about training because I hope to do a whole separate blog piece on the topic. The main purpose of training at ASLC is for husbandry, management, and research purposes. We are not a 'show' facility, but train to care for the animals and facilitate research for conservation of the species. If you have any questions about training and cannot wait until my next blog post, feel free to contact me!!

Another break for....cleaning!!!

Animal diets are closely monitored and each feed is recorded into our database.  How do we know the amounts of fish that go into each bucket or how many buckets to make for that day? We have a feed board with all this information. It tells us the number of feeds for each animal and the amounts of each type of fish that should be distributed into each feed. We generally do at least a few feeds per day, but may do more or less depending on research, variety, and staffing needs.  Whether it is the amount of feeds, the particulars of each training session, the tasks, or the needs for research, day-to-day operations are different due to the demands of the Alaska SeaLife Center. 

       

   Using Scale to Weigh Fish                   Planning Feeds for the Day                    Sea Lion Diet Bucket
                                                                                 

For an example of a typical Friday, our male Steller sea lion receives 13.6 kg herring and 3.4 kg of capelin. This totals to 17 kg of fish and about 37,600 kcal just for that day.

Diet Board: The very left lists the names of the animals, under the names is the total amount of food for that day, each square is a separate feed, the board also has places for medications, weights, and vitamin tracking

To keep track of all our sessions, feeds, and particulars, we log all information into a database. The database holds all records including the feeds of each session, diet plans, cleaning log, enrichment log, medication tracking, photographs and much more. This helps us to monitor the health of each animal through their physiology and behavior.

More scrubbing!!! Get 'er done!

There have been numerous published research conducted here at the Alaska SeaLife Center. Some of the past projects would include capture-prey studies, metabolic analyses, hormone studies, and diet studies. Our current research is focused on our Steller sea lions and breeding. We are attempting to impregnate our sea lions in hope to do studies on energetics, maternal investment, estrus, embryonic diapauses, and more. The Alaska SeaLife Center is the only research facility open to the general public.

Let's clean one more time!

At the end of the day, we go through records in the database and do the end of the day cleaning tasks. We plan the next day and complete any necessary tasks. This is just some things we do during a typical day in mammal land. The job for me is rewarding in many ways. It is challenging mentally and physically. I enjoy problem solving and having to think quick on my feet. Facilitating research is an important aspect of the job for me since I am passionate about science and conservation. I also appreciate the trainer and animal relationships. I find value in training progressions which gives me great personal satisfaction. I hope you enjoyed this blog and please comment with any questions!