We celebrated Smoke's 38th birthday in style at the Aquarium. Lana even painted her a card. Check out the video!



Click here to see how we celebrated Smoke's birthday last year (hint: it involves fish and candles).
Happy birthday Smokey!

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Today is Lana the harbor seal's 27th birthday.

Happy Birthday Lana!

One of the most popular questions the trainers hear is "How do you tell the harbor seals apart?" The answer sounds simple; just by looking at them, but it can take a long time if you don't see the seals every day.

Smoke is our 37-year-old Atlantic Harbor seal, which makes her one of the oldest seals in an aquarium. (Here's how we celebrated her birthday last year). She has had cataracts in both eyes for many years and is blind with the exception of seeing an occasional shadow. Some older seals, like other older animals and people, can develop cataracts. When an animal is blind, it is easy to assume that they cannot be trained. However, this is not the case. Smoke can be trained to do virtually anything a sighted seal can. However, there are some differences in HOW she is trained.



Smoke, being a seal, has sensitive whiskers. The technical term is called "vibrissae" because they are sensitive enough to pick up subtle changes in vibrations in her surroundings. This is great news for training. Using a hand target, I can guide Smoke's head and body into different positions. Here is a video of several behaviors all being asked for by very subtle changes in my hand position to her whiskers. Metaphorically speaking, communicating with touch could be compared to using braille vs. sign language.

Lana is another older seal with cataracts. Like Smoke, we utilize her whiskers as much as possible in the training process. Many of the seals have been trained to retrieve a seal toy from the water. Obviously, this can become a difficult task if you can't see. With Lana, I retrained her fetch behavior basing it on her sense of hearing and touch vs. sight. I attached a long, blue strap to Lana's retrieval toy. Initially, Lana hears the toy splash into the water and swims toward that general direction. Once she touches the strip with her whiskers she can follow it all the way to the toy and bring it back.

Working with these animals has taught me how significant touch is for communication. Adapting to different training techniques has helped broaden my experience and look at training situations from several angles. I am grateful to have the opportunity to work with these animals. They have taught me more than I could ever teach them.





- Belinda

Painting is one of my favorite things to do with the seals. Each painting is unique and we like to figure out what different paintings look like. Check out this example of one Chacoda did that resembles a man diving. This is a video of one of Lana's recent painting sessions. The paintbrush fits into a red holder that she bites on to. I ask her to "take" the brush holder and then "paint."

Here's the finished masterpiece:

-Justin

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Not too long ago I told you about the first behavior I trained with Smoke. Now that Smoke's inverted bottle behavior is solid, I moved on to Lana, Smokey's partner in crime. For my first behavior with Lana I chose one where she goes to the exhibit's window on cue. We figured it would be a good one because it allows visitors to get a closer look at the seals.

Before training the new behavior I came up with a training plan. Training plans include what you want your finished behavior to look like and the steps, or approximations, that you will take to reach your goal. In Lana's case, I wanted her to go to the window in the exhibit and touch her nose to the glass while also putting her flippers on the window. And here's the hard part...She has to hold that position until I bridge (see Erin's previous blog about training terms), by saying the word "good".

In this video you can see the steps (approximations) I took to reach the finished behavior:



At first I had to get her going to the window on cue. Next I increased the amount of time she was holding at the window. After that I reinforced when her flippers touched the window while she was holding the position, until eventually she would automatically put her flippers on the glass right away. Next we worked on holding that position for up to 10 seconds. The last step was getting her to go to the window from a far distance. All in all it took 1 - 2 months to train this behavior. I wonder what I'll try to train next ...

-Justin

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Rochelle and I were the only two trainers on last week. With seven seals to feed you might think it would be difficult, but this is where those name targets come in handy. Each of us did two sessions with five seals at a time, which allowed the other trainer to focus on two. It was enriching for both us and the seals; you will notice that Rochelle and I didn't always feed the same animals or even line them up in the same order, but by using those name targets we were able to keep the five seals together calmly and give everyone the attention they deserved.


Here is Rochelle with (starting from the top) Trumpet, Lana, Smoke, Reggae, and Amelia.
Can you find all five targets?


In this picture I am working with (from the top) Cayenne, Chuck, Smoke, Reggae, and Lana. With the other four seals focusing on their name targets I am able to give Smoke some of her daily eye drops.

I wonder what today will bring?

-Erin

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Of course, there's nothing like dancing to get everyone moving!

So what do you like to do to stay active? Be sure to check back to see what new activities we are trying out and how the new exhibit is coming along.

Lana

We're getting into the spirit of the season at the harbor seal exhibit. Check out this picture of Lana adding her artistic touches to a pumpkin. You can also check out these shots of Lana painting on canvas, and this example of seal artwork!

- Justin

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How do harbor seals sleep? How long can they hold their breath? The answers to these spine-tingling questions are the subject of today's marine mammal trainer's blog. Let's start with how the seals sleep.

In the photo you see Trumpet sleeping upside down while her hind flippers stick up like rabbit ears. This is not a common sleeping posture, but Trumpet must be on to something since her daughter Cayenne occasionally sleeps "flippers up" too.

Sleeping on the bottom of the exhibit are Reggae, in the foreground, and Cayenne against the wall in the back. Harbor seals can hold their breath for 20 minutes. As the seals sleep deeply, they just bob or roll a little in the wake of other seals swimming by. Alarmed visitors often go to the information desk to report in a whisper, "There is a dead seal in the exhibit. Just thought you should know." While the visitor is conscientiously reporting their findings to the staff, the sleeping seal rises to the surface for a couple of quick breaths before sinking slowly back to the bottom. This cycle can repeat itself for hours.

When the harbor seals haul out...

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