A seal kissed me and I liked it
Seal kisses are whiskery and fishy and soft and made of awesome.
My follow the trainers morning at the New England Aquarium was all kinds of wonderful. It was fascinating learning about how the seals are trained and to participate in some of the exercises. I got to feed them squidcicles and to play tug of war with a seal named Lana, the seal who later kissed me. I was able to give a couple of seals their commands, and they did what I said, amazing! All my photos are of Amelia and Trumpet, two of the females among the seven seals there, and then I did more active training with Lana and I think her name was Shade. Of course I was thrilled that one of the seals was named Amelia :-) I also participated in training exercises with Myrtle, the 500 pound sea turtle in the big reef tank. They've trained her to come to a white pole stuck in the water, for which she gets a brussel sprout. We traveled around the top of the tank getting her to come over to various points, and I got to toss her the sprouts. Sanguineempathy, I thought of you--you'd have loved it! I wasn't able to take pictures of the turtle training because we spent some time out on that little platform over the tank, and things that could fall in the tank are not allowed out there. But I took plenty more pictures of seals:
Seals are trained to do this:
So that the trainers can do this:
They also like to lie on their backs for petting, which is helpful for examinations. I got to pet a seal's tummy :)
As far as I know, there is no jelly fish training program, but the relatively new jelly fish exhibit is strikingly beautiful:
(I took those without a flash, just holding my breath, and I'm surprised they came out as well as they did)
I think they do train the penguins somewhat, but the logistics of assisting in that would be complicated. This penguin was very loud:
All in all, it was an amazing program and really worth the cost. The trainers were all very nice people who were very happy to share their experiences, full of enthusiasm. They made it clear that there is a lot of dish washing involved in being a seal trainer, it's not just playing with the seals all day, but they also made it clear that it was well worth it to them. It was a great peek into another world.
My follow the trainers morning at the New England Aquarium was all kinds of wonderful. It was fascinating learning about how the seals are trained and to participate in some of the exercises. I got to feed them squidcicles and to play tug of war with a seal named Lana, the seal who later kissed me. I was able to give a couple of seals their commands, and they did what I said, amazing! All my photos are of Amelia and Trumpet, two of the females among the seven seals there, and then I did more active training with Lana and I think her name was Shade. Of course I was thrilled that one of the seals was named Amelia :-) I also participated in training exercises with Myrtle, the 500 pound sea turtle in the big reef tank. They've trained her to come to a white pole stuck in the water, for which she gets a brussel sprout. We traveled around the top of the tank getting her to come over to various points, and I got to toss her the sprouts. Sanguineempathy, I thought of you--you'd have loved it! I wasn't able to take pictures of the turtle training because we spent some time out on that little platform over the tank, and things that could fall in the tank are not allowed out there. But I took plenty more pictures of seals:
Seals are trained to do this:
So that the trainers can do this:
They also like to lie on their backs for petting, which is helpful for examinations. I got to pet a seal's tummy :)
As far as I know, there is no jelly fish training program, but the relatively new jelly fish exhibit is strikingly beautiful:
(I took those without a flash, just holding my breath, and I'm surprised they came out as well as they did)
I think they do train the penguins somewhat, but the logistics of assisting in that would be complicated. This penguin was very loud:
All in all, it was an amazing program and really worth the cost. The trainers were all very nice people who were very happy to share their experiences, full of enthusiasm. They made it clear that there is a lot of dish washing involved in being a seal trainer, it's not just playing with the seals all day, but they also made it clear that it was well worth it to them. It was a great peek into another world.