The life of a marine mammal intern!

Hello everyone! Since my family came and visited last week, I actually have some pictures of myself at work now, and I thought I might share with all of you what I do during the day!

A good portion of my day is spent on the manatee stage. I answer questions and give little 5 minute spiels about manatees every half hour. Here I am talking about Lou and Jasper, who are currently snoozing on the bottom of the tank. :)



We also spiel for the dolphin research sessions throughout the day. Basically we stand in the corner of the window and narrate what happens while the trainers work the dolphin in the session. Check out my sweet Madonna style microphone! (And yes, I know, my outfit is quite stylish.)



In the past week, we have been learning how to do the window spiels! What that means is that we give a spiel about dolphins, their anatomy and conservation. While talking, we also work the dolphin at the window, and have him to various behaviors like pec waves, smiles, bubbles, etc. It is really awesome!!! Unfortunately, I hadn't quite finished all the training when my family was here, so they only got to see me learning to work the dolphin at the window, but we were all still pretty excited! I've now done my whole spiel (talking, dolphins, everything) three times, and it is so fun!!! Hopefully I'll get a video of it eventually so everyone can see it! :) Here's a picture my sister got of me asking Khyber to smile for the crowd!





Lastly, my family managed to catch me in the main tank scrubbing coral! We spend a LOT of time in our wetsuits, between vacuuming manatee, hull scrubbing the pool floors, scrubbing back pools, scrubbing coral and cleaning windows. I was glad they were able to see me scuba diving at work! (This is a pretty goofy picture of me and Nicole. haha)



Well, those are all the fun things I do onstage at The Seas!!! :)