In the documentary we watched about the seal strandings, we were taken through the process of initially responding to the stranding emergencies, transportation to rehabilitation facilities, giving care to the animals, and then release. Since our program, Allied Whale, doesn't have a veterinary facility of their own (they transport the injured animals they find to University of New England Animal Rehabilitation Center in Portland, ME approx. 2 hours away) we will be focused more and the collection/transport aspect and less of the caregiving, but the information was still very relevant to us. We learned the visual symptoms of an ill seal, including decreased aggressiveness when presented food, lack of whisker movement while presented food indicative of no appetite which is extremely detrimental to seal health, and lack of awareness when humans are close in proximity. In the video, which was filmed in California, explained that domoic acid poisoning (due to farm run-off) is a recent and significant cause of sickness in seals there, so now I'm really curious to see what my mentor says about common causes of sickness in seals in Maine, the complete opposite side do the country.
Anyways, we also learned the proper method of transporting the seals. Since the animals average about 1 ton each, it makes getting them into a cage no easy feat. It's hard to explain accurately and shortly what the people do, they essentially get a few people to carry huge sheets of wood to try and corner it into to the cage. I suggested that we try and practice on the freshman, but we didn't have any cages. However, we will be working mainly with baby seals considering May is harbor seal pupping season, so transporting them will be a lot less difficult.
The whale dissection video we watched was also very interesting, but watching it right before lunch probably wasn't one of our brightest ideas. It explained in great detail about how whales breathe and feed, but what I thought was most interesting was how whales have this sort of retracting/ collapsing ribcage which enables them to dive extreme depths without their body being crushed by the nearly 2000 pounds of water pressure they endure. I also learned that whale watching requires a lot of patients because their dives for food last around 45 minutes because their lungs allow them to breathe underwater for approx. an hour. Whales also typically migrate back to Maine in late spring, aka when we'll be there so hopefully we'll get lucky with abundant sightings while we help our mentor with her research.
Ok, this got so long, I am genuinely sorry.
- Lindsay
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Today began Lindsay’s and mine’s deeper understanding of emergency marine mammal rescues. One of the most important criteria that needs to be reached before letting the animals back into the wild is to make sure they have an excess of fat and is able to eat live fish on their own. If an animal comes in and they can’t cure it due to genetic mutations, chances are they will euthanize it. One major issue many marine animals have been facing is consuming demoic acid through eating plankton. Demoic acid causes the animals to have seizures as well have creating holes through their brains. Direct run off from farms and dumping chemicals into the ocean has caused a spike in demoic acid along the coasts of our oceans. However, a lot of animals migrate across the ocean every year and return to the same beach to breed and relax. Unfortunately there is no known way to cure the animals that suffer from the effects of demoic acid. A lot of marine mammal rescue centers have a success rate of 50%, which is pretty low so it’s really important to be really conscious of the waste we produce and where we throw it.
-Bre
Thanks, Lindsay and Bre!
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