Shark tales
I was going to complain about how disgusting this cold makes me -- today it is less painful, but quite a bit more disgusting -- but instead I will write about the interesting day at work yesterday.
... Wait, I don't think I ever mentioned what "work" actually means. It's a volunteer job at Aquarium of the Bay down at Pier 39! I go there every Wednesday, and I work with husbandry: I take care of the terrestrial animals not on exhibit. Snakes, skinks, frogs, chinchillas, and hedgehogs. Recently I've been upgraded to Slug Girl since we lost a couple of Wednesday volunteers. I get to clean the banana slug tanks and get them ready for the public. And I feed the turtles upstairs! And try to appease the camera'd masses, who find it fascinating to watch a turtle eat a worm off tongs.
Yesterday the seven sevengill sharks got a checkup and blood drawn! They were caught and loaded into a sling to be measured and weighed. I wrote down the numbers and helped deter the sharks from smashing their noses against the quarantine tank walls with a big net. Those sharks are pretty big. The biggest one, Debbie K., was over 230 centimeters long and more than 200 pounds! I've never been this close to a live shark before; it was pretty neat.
If you turn a shark upside down, it really does stop moving. Some of them needed the drugged water to really stop -- one of the guys holding the shark down got slapped with its tail.
I wish I could be there Friday or the weekend, because they're going to do ultrasounds on the five female sharks. Maybe we will have shark babies!
... Wait, I don't think I ever mentioned what "work" actually means. It's a volunteer job at Aquarium of the Bay down at Pier 39! I go there every Wednesday, and I work with husbandry: I take care of the terrestrial animals not on exhibit. Snakes, skinks, frogs, chinchillas, and hedgehogs. Recently I've been upgraded to Slug Girl since we lost a couple of Wednesday volunteers. I get to clean the banana slug tanks and get them ready for the public. And I feed the turtles upstairs! And try to appease the camera'd masses, who find it fascinating to watch a turtle eat a worm off tongs.
Yesterday the seven sevengill sharks got a checkup and blood drawn! They were caught and loaded into a sling to be measured and weighed. I wrote down the numbers and helped deter the sharks from smashing their noses against the quarantine tank walls with a big net. Those sharks are pretty big. The biggest one, Debbie K., was over 230 centimeters long and more than 200 pounds! I've never been this close to a live shark before; it was pretty neat.
If you turn a shark upside down, it really does stop moving. Some of them needed the drugged water to really stop -- one of the guys holding the shark down got slapped with its tail.
I wish I could be there Friday or the weekend, because they're going to do ultrasounds on the five female sharks. Maybe we will have shark babies!