Category: intern-blog

Today I went to the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries office in New Bedford to take part in a great white shark necropsy being performed by Greg Skomal.  The shark had washed up on shore a few days earlier and was picked up by the Division. The necropsy was being done to try and figure out the cause of death and to take tissue and organ samples for further study of the fish.  The shark was a female and less than 1 year old, although, you would never know that from its size (6 feet).  This was an amazing opportunity to see a great white shark up close and to learn about sharks from the Division’s shark expert.

After my work on the Quest, I was off to Connecticut to meet up with past Frank Scalli Intern Richard Simon.  I would be doing my Advanced and Nitrox class with him.  The first night, we got all of the gear ready to go to Block Island and then did the majority of the classroom portion.  There were a lot of materials to go through, since I was doing two classes.  Nitrox or enriched air is a mixture of gas that has a higher percentage of oxygen than regular air; the two most common mixes are 68% nitrogen, 32% oxygen, and 64% nitrogen, 36% oxygen.  The next day we drove to Point Judith, RI to take a boat to Block Island.  There are a ton of wrecks near Block Island, which is a perfect location for the advanced dives.  We dove on the Troydon, and the Heroine. The Troydon is a 90 ft clam boat lying in 135ft water.  The Heroine is a broken up steam fishing vessel lying at 80ft.

I woke up this morning with eager anticipation; I was finally going to dive in the New England Aquarium’s Giant Ocean Tank, fulfilling a dream I’d had ever since I’d interned at the Marine Mammals exhibit there. For those who’ve never been to the New England Aquarium, the Giant Ocean Tank (or GOT) is a 23′ deep, 40′ diameter tank holding 200,000 gallons of seawater heated to 75F to simulate conditions in a Caribbean reef ecosystem. The tank houses a gigantic, 20′-tall fiberglass coral reef replica that over 600 fish (and a few turtles) call home. The species within the tank range from damselfish to balloonfish to tarpon to sand tiger sharks; pretty much every level of a typical reef food chain is represented in the GOT. One would expect this to result in a lot of bad news for the little guys in the tank–and a lot of tasty meals for the apex predators, like the sharks and the barracuda on exhibit–but fortunately that is not the case, thanks to the tireless efforts of the aquarium’s dive staff, who work all day to ensure everyone in the tank is well fed and taken care of. This group of dedicated staff and volunteers, whom I worked with for the day, prep four meals a day for the fish on exhibit; the food ranges from lettuce to zooplankton to squid to herring, with specific diets prepared for each species on exhibit. Some of the fish are feed at the surface, while the others are feed underwater by divers. In total, five dives are conducted each day, four for feeding and one for maintenance of the exhibit.
The workday started with food prep; nothing like the smell of countless buckets of thawing seafood to wake you up! Squid were debeaked and depenned, shrimp were detailed (as in tails removed, not cleaned like a car–that took me a while to figure out,) capelin were sorted male and female, and everything was chucked into buckets, bags, and tupperware containers for the feeding sessions to come. For the first feed, I handled the needlefish and barracuda, chucking krill, silversides, and capelin out to any hungry passersby. Second feed found me paired up with Myrtle, unofficial mascot (and definite prima donna) of the GOT. Myrtle is a 75-year old, 550-pound Green Sea Turtle, and she cavorts around with an attitude that can only come from living in the Giant Ocean Tank ever since it was first built 40 years ago. She also eats quite a lot, being the only animal in the tank that fed at each of the four sessions; during my session with her, she gulped down a full head of lettuce, a dozen or so brussel sprouts, and a head of broccoli and seemed eager for more.
After lunch came the moment I’d been waiting for, as I suited up and prepared to dive into the GOT. Paul Leonard unfortunately could not dive with me that day, but I was placed in the capable hands of Dan Laughlin, assistant curator of the Giant Ocean Tank and Penguin exhibits. He made sure to show me that, while diving in the GOT is a job with a lot of responsibility, it’s also a fun and incredible experience. We scrubbed the “coral”, noted deposits of damselfish eggs on the walls of the tank, brushed Myrtle’s back with a convenient rock, and then I had the chance to just sit back and observe all the amazing animals interact peacefully around me. And as I watched Dan blow bubble rings to the sharks cruising directly over our heads, while hundreds of visitors peered at us through the glass, I realized just how lucky I was to be in that position, and how I wouldn’t exchange the experience for anything in the world.

My next location was Fairhaven Harbor; here I was on Eric and Lori Takakjian’s boat the Quest.  The Quest was being used by the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries to support a Focus II tow vehicle for using multi-beam sonar.  The two days were spent putting everything onto the boat and securing it to the deck. Setting up the system with the computers, to ensure that everything was being read properly took quite a while.  As with any big research project, we ran into some problems, so there was a lot of trial and error.  When everything was all set up, we slowly raised the Focus II and slid it into the water, for a float test. It was very interesting to learn about the system and how it all worked.   I am very grateful to Lori and Eric for inviting me out on the boat.

Today found me up at 5:00 AM, getting ready to catch a train into Boston for a long day’s work at the New England Aquarium (NEAq). I couldn’t help but feel a strong sense of deja vu during the trip in to North Station; you see, I’d caught this exact train many times before, back when I participated in a six-month Marine Mammal internship for the aquarium. This time, however, I was not going into Boston to work with the Atlantic Harbor & Pacific Fur Seals; instead, I was going to help out with the African, Rockhopper, and Blue Penguins! Once I arrived at NEAq, I met up with Paul Leonard, a Boston Sea Rover and senior aquarist in the penguin exhibit. He introduced me to the staff and volunteers on the exhibit, and then I jumped straight into work, helping separate and weigh the fish of choice for the day — Sardines (which are quite different from the fish sold in tight little tin cans in the supermarket.) Once the buckets for each species of penguin were filled with the proper amount of fish, we all suited up in nice, thick 7mm wetsuits and prepared to go in the exhibit. Though no one was going to be diving, those 7mm suits were crucial; the water in the exhibit is filtered in straight from the adjoining Boston Harbor, at an average temperature of about 60F. Furthermore, we were planning to spend about 3 hours in that water, which ranged in depth from waist-deep to up to my neck; after the first half-hour in there I was thinking I should have brought my DUI drysuit!
However, my attention was quickly drawn away from the cold when we started to feed the penguins. Working with Paul, I kept a tally of how much fish each of the 41 African Penguins on exhibit ate. Though the African’s have distinct markings on their chest plumage, it’d be almost impossible to recognize each individual bird by sight, which is why the penguins are all tagged with colored ID bands on their wings; left for the males, and right for the females. I expected to be overwhelmed by all the colors and corresponding names,  but was pleasantly surprised to find that by the end of the feeding session I could already identify a handful of the penguins. Once every African Penguin had been seen to, we put the food buckets away and pulled out hoses, disinfectant, and scrub brushes; even with a team of four or more volunteers, it takes roughly five hours of work a day to keep the exhibits clean and the penguins well fed–that means five hours in numbingly cold water, which is why I soon learned to be very grateful for the hot showers we took at lunch and again near the end of our shift. The rest of the day flew by, and before I knew it the kitchen was clean, blocks of frozen fish were set out to thaw, and wetsuits were all hung with care, ready for the next day’s set of volunteers to do it all over again. I’ll be back with the penguins later this week, but tomorrow brings a whole new set of experiences as I head up to the top floor to work with the aquarium dive team and dive into the Great Ocean Tank!

Today was my first day at the New England Aquarium. I was wicked excited, because I have been going to the NEAq since I was very little, so it was cool to see the Aquarium from a different perspective. When I arrived, I meet up with Paul Leonard, Senior Aquarist for the Penguins.  He showed me where he worked and then got me started with helping to clean the Penguin exhibit; I have never cleaned so hard in my life.  It was now feeding time for the penguins, and for such little birds they eat a lot.  In the afternoon, he showed me around the aquarium from behind the scenes. The exhibits look different, when you are standing behind them.  The next day, I spent the morning working with the water quality team.  They have a very important job, because if there is something wrong with the water, the organisms can get sick.    During the afternoon I was allowed to watch and participate in a necropsy of cow nose rays.  A necropsy is like an autopsy, but for animals.  After the third one, an intern from the Veterinary staff and I did one ourselves.  It was really interesting.  The third day I shadowed one of the Marine Vets.  He had us running all over the place, between a very busy schedule and the emergency calls he received.  I was even able to go with him to the outside tank when he was giving one of the female harbor seals an injection.  The trainers would feed and distract the other seals while he did his work.

The last two days that I was at the Aquarium, I worked with the dive staff and the Giant Ocean Tank (GOT) staff.  I helped with food prep, feeding, cleaning and diving.  The GOT animals are fed 3 times per day, so there is a lot of food prep in the morning.  After feedings we have to wash all the containers that were used.  I had never done so many dishes!  Paul took me in for a tour of the tank.  It was so cool to see all of the different types of animals within one small ecosystem. I noticed very quickly how friendly the turtles are, especially Myrtle, who wants to know everything going on in the tank.  The next day, when I was doing a cleaning dive I was kneeling in an area known as the sand trap scrubbing some rocks, when one of the loggerheads came over and sat on top of my legs.  It was pretty funny to watch the turtle nestle in against me.  When I was not cleaning, I handled some of the surface feeds.  There are many fish, like the cobia, barracuda, puffer fish, needle nose fish that are fed from the surface.  Myrtle is also fed on the surface and her favorite food is Brussels sprouts.  The last day I was at the NEAQ, Dan Dolan took me into the tank and I was able to do some video taping for my presentation.  In the afternoon, I went back to the penguins where I got to feed them myself.  One of my favorite things about my time at the NEAQ was when I would first arrive in the morning.   It wasn’t open to the public yet so the lights where just starting to turn on and it was extremely quiet, all you could hear was the sound of the water and the animals.  I really enjoyed my experience at the Aquarium and learned so many things about how an aquarium works.

The last weekend in June, I went to Orleans on Cape Cod, where I stayed with Boston Sea Rover George Buckley.  We were working on a Limulus and Busycon projects.  The Busycon cavia is the New England whelk or conch and Limulus polyphemus is the horseshoe crab.  While I was there we went to Rock Harbor, Pleasant Bay, and Nauset Beach to find Busycon egg cases and baby Limulus.  We unfortunately did not find any Limulus, but we did find conch egg cases.  We opened the egg cases and counted the tiny conchs, in each case.  The weekend was very interesting and I learned a lot about Limulus, Busycon, and sea shells.

For three days I worked at Diver’s Market in Plymouth, MA.  Wayne Gomer owns the shop and started me off with organizing rental equipment and painting weights.  Then he gave me the job of rearranging the store and creating a new floor plan.  Over the next few days, I learned how to fill tanks, do visual tank inspections with the Visual Plus machine, put together regulators, and change o-rings.  In the end, I learned quite a bit about what it takes to operate a dive shop and I really enjoyed the experience.

Today I went to visit Fred Dion, the owner of Underwater Phototech in New Hampshire.  Here I also learned how to put together and use the camera and housing that I received for the use during the internship.  The camera is a Sony HC-3 camera with a Gates HD housing.  I learned how the camera lines up to fit perfectly within the housing and what the different buttons on the housing are used for during filming.  This information will be extremely helpful for making my presentation.  I also learned how to put camera and housing packages together and how to make packing slips.