Aquarium of the Podcific
Aquarium of the Podcific
Who is the loudest sea lion at the Aquarium?
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BORK! It's time to learn about sea lions! Mammalogist Erin Bell joins us today to talk to us about these majestic and sometimes (usually) silly animals.
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Seals & Sea Lions Animal Encounters at the Aquarium of the Pacific
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Thanks for listening!
Hi, I'm Erin Lundy. And I'm Madeline Walton, and this is Aquarium of the Pod Civic. A podcast brought to you by Aquarium of the Pacific, Southern California's largest aquarium.
SPEAKER_02Join us as we learn alongside the experts in animal care, conservation, and more.
SPEAKER_01Welcome back to Aquarium of the Pod Civic. I'm Madeline Walton, the Aquarium's digital content and community manager, and I'm joined, as always, by my co-host, Aaron Lundy. I am the manager of conservation initiatives here at the Aquarium of the Pacific. And today we're going to talk about sea lions with Aaron Bell, anymoreist.
SPEAKER_02I do feel like that was one of our most requested animals. Truly. And I mean, sea lions, we had to save them.
SPEAKER_01We had to save them for not last, but first for a second season. To keep you around. To keep people coming. What I love about this episode and last week's episode were on a theme. So we had Alex and Alex last week. This week we have Erin and Erin. It's pretty cool. It's a it's a But I'm always here.
SPEAKER_02Are we gonna hire someone else named Madeline? No. Or are they gonna go buy Madeline and then it'll be two very different a Madeline? A Madeline. All right, that's fair. But Erin Bell has been one of our mammologists here at the aquarium for quite some time. She's been working with R.C. Lions for a few years now. And she has a pretty great relationship with each of our boys, so it's fun to hear her stories and hear her talk about them.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I don't have a favorite animal, but if I did, it might be our sea lions. And which one is it? Harpo was my all-time favorite. Really good boy. We'll talk a little bit about Harpo in this episode. Um but all of them really, I think they're just big water puppies. Is the right answer. Keep your answer to yourself, I guess. No, but I'm really excited about this episode. We learned so much with Aaron. And um, something exciting happening this summer is that our sea lion encounters, seal and sea lion encounters are coming back.
SPEAKER_02Yes. If you book a pinniped encounter on our website, you will meet either a seal or a sea lion. It's a surprise. And all of our animals have actually been working very hard on encounters and being ready for meeting people again this summer. And I love doing encounters, which I know but it's not everyone's favorite thing to do in the world. But sometimes you just get a guest that just loves what's going on and is so into it and learns so much and takes away so much. And really the public and all the people that come to the aquarium are what makes the place run and make it great. So thank you for coming. Please sign up for Pini Pet Encounters. You'll meet Aaron or Aaron or the other people.
SPEAKER_01One of the many Aaron's that we're no, I think it it must be a cool reminder of how cool your job is because it is your job. You're here, you know, a significant amount of time, and you're it's just your day-to-day is feeding these sea lions, and then you have someone who is so excited to come into the habitat to get close to these animals, and it's a good reminder, like, oh yeah, this is really amazing.
SPEAKER_02It kind of refreshes your passion when you're like, oh, I do have a cool job. Because day to day, you're like, yeah, I smell real bad. I stink like fish at all times, and I'm tired, and you know, like there's a lot of physical. It's your job. Yeah, and we never smell good. And I feel bad every time I'm like introducing myself to the encounter guest, and I'm like, hey, I'm sorry. You're like shaking their hand, you're like, I'm covered in fish. My hand is wet for some reason, and it's not that I just washed it, like I don't really know what's going on. But um, yeah, I think I won't shake your hand if you don't want me to, and I'm gross.
SPEAKER_01Some people are really all about touching the fish, and some people just aren't, because you usually offer that enduring. We have gloves that people can wear as well.
SPEAKER_02So there's a lot of different things.
SPEAKER_01You can always wash your hands after, too.
SPEAKER_02No, you actually can't the rest of the day. So you can't wash your hand ever again. No, it's a mammologist. I've been really thrilled with the idea of our encounters coming back, and I think it'll be cool. And you know, whether or not you get to meet a sea lion or if you meet a seal, the animals are super engaging and fun, and really you get to learn about all of the species that we have here, and you have a captive audience of a mammologist who can answer all of your fun marine mammal questions as well. That's great.
SPEAKER_01And we'll talk about seals specifically on an upcoming podcast, but today we're gonna focus mostly on sea lions. What kind of seals? The ones we have here. Oh, okay, that makes more sense. We can focus on one seal. Just Kaya. Just Troy. There's not a lot. No, he makes a donut. He does make a donut. He can make himself into a donut.
SPEAKER_02I would love to have Troy on the podcast. I think we need more animals. He might speak more than Lola did. Michael the fish. We can have Michael the fish on the podcast. I think that's a good idea. But anyway, anyway. If you would like to visit the aquarium and sign up for a pin and pet encounter, you will be able to very soon, actually. It starts mid-June, which I think is probably right now.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and come see our new frog exhibit. We talked a little bit about that a couple weeks ago. There's a lot of stuff going on.
SPEAKER_02There's a lot of stuff happening in the summer.
SPEAKER_01Come visit the aquarium.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01That's a that's a reasonable suggestion. Cool. Let's get into today's episode.
SPEAKER_02Today we're joined by Aaron Bell, who is one of our mimologists here at the aquarium, to talk about sea lions. Erin, how have our sea lions been today?
SPEAKER_00Uh, they've been pretty good. They've been pretty good all day. Um, they're pretty good most of the time in general. But we've worked on some more difficult stuff and they've all been very cooperative and very hungry.
SPEAKER_02It's been cool to see a lot of the behavioral progression that our animals have made in the last few years since you've worked here. And I know that you've been working on some really cool behaviors with our sea lions, so maybe we can touch on that later on. But you are a marine mammal trainer. That is most kids' dream job. But how did you get into being a marine mammal trainer?
SPEAKER_00Um, so I studied environmental science and zoology when I was in university, um, and that led me to continuing my passion for the ocean that I've had since I was a little kid coming to the aquarium in the Pacific, where I learned all the things that made me want to be a part of this field. Um, and then from there I got really lucky and got an internship at the Marine Mammal Care Center here in Southern California, learning about seal and sea lion rehabilitation and how amazing they are as animals. And then was able to move on into the training sphere. And now here at the aquarium, I get to do a little bit of both. I get to work with our animals that are permanent residents here at our aquarium and also contribute to different conservation rehabilitation efforts through the aquarium. That's awesome.
SPEAKER_02It's cool to see that although we have a population of pinnipeds that sort of lives here more permanently, and we can touch on who those guys are later. And we do do a lot to sort of help out with other rehabilitation efforts and conservation efforts with marine mammals around California. And it's also cool to know that you grew up coming to this aquarium and now you work here. It's a vest. That's so cool.
SPEAKER_01What's your favorite part of your job?
SPEAKER_00Um, I think it's relationship building with the animals. Um, I started at the aquarium just a little over a year ago now. Um, and in that time, seeing the animals' response to me specifically uh change, go from, you know, I'm walking in the tunnel and they like look at me and they're like, whatever. Like that's a person in Navy Blue and Khaki to them specifically working to interact with me. They know who I am. Um I can work on some more challenging behaviors with the animals because I've built that trust with them. Uh, I think that's my favorite part of seeing those relationships grow. Uh, and then watching them when the guests come and they have those really important experiences that I had when I was little of kind of realizing how magical the ocean can be and just how incredible these animals are when you get to see them up close.
SPEAKER_02Who do you think you have the best relationship with and the worst relationship with and why?
SPEAKER_00Oh, that's a good question. Um I think I have the well, it depends on what we're doing. I think I have both. Sometimes the best relationship with uh one of our California sea lions, Kane. Um, I've worked with him a lot. He was one of the ones I worked with pretty early on in me working here, and um I am assigned some of his uh really important husbandry behaviors, um, teaching him how to go into some of our different areas of the exhibit that he might be a little bit more tentative going to, um, which means that I get the fun task of just having him go in one spot and feeding him just all the fish I have in my bucket, which is a sea lion's favorite thing in the world. Uh, but that also means that sometimes he sees me and he's like, Are we gonna do that somewhat scarier thing? Um But we have pretty resilient boys, they're really great, they're really smart. Um so I think Kane I have a pretty good relationship with. Um and then I think it's actually pretty even, honestly, among all of them. I think it's more about what we're doing, more so than me specifically.
SPEAKER_02So Kane best, and then everyone else.
SPEAKER_00Everyone else, pretty good. But uh Kane's pretty cute. He's the best boy. He's a pretty good boy. I know that's your favorite. Yeah, it's a spoiler. It's Kane is the favorite of all the Erens.
SPEAKER_02Anyone named Aaron Kane is their favorite. I don't know what it is, but something about the name. Well, we wanted to learn a little bit more about California sea lions specifically, although in our pinniped habitat we do have both California sea lions and harbor seals. The main question we get is sort of what are the differences between seals and sea lions? So could you briefly elaborate on sort of how you can tell the difference?
SPEAKER_00Sure. So they are both part of the same group. They're both pinnipeds, um, which means I've heard some people say fin-footed or feather-footed. Um, if you look at that shape of those really nice flippers they have on them, that's where that comes from. Um so they are um two different groups within pinnipeds. Uh, we have our eared seals, which are our sea lions, our California sea lions, our stellar sea lions, southern sea lions, uh fur seals, weirdly enough, also tricky with all those sea lions. Um, and then we have our true seals, um, which are our harbor seals or our leopard seals. Um, and there are a few pretty distinct differences between them. Um, I think the easiest visually is you notice that one of them is called eared seals, and that is because they have external ear structures. Uh, if you come to the aquarium and take a look at our um sea lion collection, you'll see those little ears on the outside that kind of look like weird little Tootsi rolls. They're very cute. They're so cute little beards. Yeah. But if you look at our seals, they just have ear holes. They don't have that external ear structure, so that's one of the main differences. Um, but there are quite a few. Uh the other easy one, if you're ever far away, is if they're on land, how are they moving? Um, a sea lion can rotate their hips underneath themselves, um, and they can effectively run or walk when they're on land, whereas our seals, their hips are fused straight out, they cannot move them, and they end up doing um that kind of very cute uh wiggly worm movement um where they just kind of flop around like a little caterpillar. It's very cute. And it the scientific name for it is actually called galumphing, which I think is very charming.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and it's from the poem The Jabberwocky, and with his head he went galumphing back. That's they were just like, yep, that sounds like Halloween.
SPEAKER_00And if you watch it, that is what it looks like. It looks like galumphing.
SPEAKER_02I laughed because I imagined a seal running. And the way that they move when they do it fast is so fun.
SPEAKER_00It is, it's really good. And like depending on the size of the seal, their front flippers may or may not be able to touch the ground. Um my favorite thing is some of our seals, like um Troy, if he wants to move a little bit quicker or is just a little tired or whatever, he his go-to is just to roll. Um so sometimes you'll ask him back into the water and he's like, this is probably easier. And he just rolls his way.
SPEAKER_01He's just a big circle.
SPEAKER_00Oh, they're so cute. Okay, enough about seals though.
SPEAKER_01We'll do a seal episode. This is a sea lion episode, you guys. Be serious. We have three sea lions here at the aquarium. Um, we'll get into that in a second, but they all look distinctly different. Can you talk about the differences between male sea lions, mature male sea lions, and females? Yeah, absolutely. They're babies.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So um, all three of our California sea lions here at the aquarium are all male. But if you come and look at them, they don't all look like a classic um bull male sea lion. Um, we only really have Parker, who is that very typical male sea lion, and that's because the other two are neutered. Um and so the size of a male sea lion, along with that really cool bump that they have on their head that's called a sagittal crest, all comes as they come into maturity, as they come into sexual maturity for a few different reasons. One is that large size helps them be very competitive when it's breeding season, or sea lion rut, which is happening around the summertime. That big bump actually allows for additional muscle attachments on their head. So Parker can actually not only is bigger than our other boys, but can bite harder. It's very impressive. His bark matches his bite. It does. And so the main differences between a male and a female are really that size and the fact that the males do develop that crest on top of their heads. So if you look at our other two sea lions, Cain and Chase, who are neutered, they effectively look like large female sea lions. Um, they are still bigger than a female California sea lion would get, um, but the body shape wise is pretty much what they look like.
SPEAKER_02Have we ever had female sea lions at the aquarium? We have in the past, the long distant past, and we haven't in quite some time. Sometimes having female sea lions with an intact male sea lion can encourage breeding behaviors and some competition between animals that might not necessarily be so good for them socially. Um I'm sure there are groups out there that are managed appropriately with mixed-sex sea lions, and we just I don't think had the capacity for that. But I think it's anything's game in the future. We don't really know, but we've opted to have three boys and neuter two of them, so that that limits sort of that competition too. Because two testosterone-filled dudes in the same habitat is just a recipe for them just getting into a curtain.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. Out in the wild, males and females will be around each other, but they do tend to hang out in social groupings that are more generally male or generally female other than breeding season. So this is a pretty natural grouping of animals. Very cool.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Parker is huge right now. Um right now it is the end of May. Oh no, it's June. Oh my goodness. It is June. And how big is Parker approximately right now?
SPEAKER_00He is about 800 pounds. Um, so that is a gain over the last few months from around 600 all the way up to about 800 pounds. I believe the biggest he has gotten while living with us was about 850. Uh last year was about 815. Um, and that's because, like I said, we're going into sea lion rett. This is sea lion breeding season. Um, and his main job as an intact male is to be huge and defend his territory. Out in the wild, he would be going up on a beach and he would be protecting a harem of females to make sure that he was the only one that got to um breed with them and pass on his genetics as the big competitive male. Um, so they put on all this weight so that while they're defending their territory, they don't have to eat. They will spend weeks just barking and yelling and fighting. Um, and they have all those incredible stores of blubber to help get them through that time.
SPEAKER_02Aaron Powell What does Parker do given that he has no access to females for the duration of the summer?
SPEAKER_00Sure. So he still gets a little um defensive of his territory. Um he will still do like the posturing, he'll still bark, and he will definitely communicate to the other boys if he feels like they are um infringing on his rights uh as the big bull male in that exhibit. Um but we work really hard to work with him on that. So we give him his space, we get let him spend his time as he prefers. Sometimes he still wants to come and work with us, he still wants to come to session, he still wants to do all those mentally enriching um training programs, and sometimes he just wants to swim in a circle and bark. Uh so we really are able to work with him. Yeah, which is nice. But he is a very, very good boy, and he makes managing this hormonal time for a sea lion pretty easy compared to what it could be with some other animals. He is such a good boy.
SPEAKER_02He is really good. I think people typically think of like a dominant male as being like aggressive or in your face, and Parker is like, hey, just don't come over here right now. And it's very mellow. Just right now. I just got like feelings.
SPEAKER_00He does a good job. He's drawn boundaries with the other animals and they respect them. Uh, but then at the point of the day, they're cuddling. Oh, yeah, they all still nap together.
SPEAKER_02The boundaries are for when we're awake.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_00We still want to snuggle.
SPEAKER_02Still snuggle time.
SPEAKER_01What about what do they eat? What do they eat in the wild versus what they eat here at the aquarium?
SPEAKER_00Uh in the wild they'll eat small schooling fish. Um so here at the aquarium we feed them uh herring, capelin, and squid primarily. They'll also get um some other types for enrichment just to keep things fresh and interesting. The other day they got some night smelt and some silversides, which are quite small. Like the average capelin is probably like four to five inches, maybe three to four inches, um, whereas a silver side is like maybe two inches. Um so it was a very fun session of just seeing how they responded to their snacks being a little bit smaller.
SPEAKER_02I think it's funny that a lot of times the typical thinking is like, oh, a new animal or an animal's gonna love a new food type with like a huge fish, like a salmon or something that's massive. And some of our animals prefer the really tiny especially a really, really big sales.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_02Prefers the smallest fish in the city.
SPEAKER_00Parker, he is not more reinforced by a large herring than he is by one small capeland is his favorite thing. So good.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, concentrated snack.
SPEAKER_01He likes he knows what he likes. Yeah. Oh, precious. What about their life cycle and their lifespan? How long do they live for? What is the what is the average life cycle of a sea of California sea lion?
SPEAKER_00Uh under human care, um, California sea lions tend to live into their um mid-20s is pretty average for them under human care. Uh obviously, their lifestyle differs quite a bit when they are under human care than it does out in the wild. Um, out in the wild, they do tend to live less time. Uh, usually mid to high teens is pretty normal for them. Out in the wild, Parker would no longer be a large competitive male like he is in our collection. Um, he would have been out competed by the younger, more energetic sea lions out in the wild at this point. Uh so under human care, they can live for a pretty long time. Um, but out in the wild, they do have some other things that they have to do.
SPEAKER_02How old is Parker?
SPEAKER_00Parker is currently 21 years old, might be 22 by the time this podcast comes out. Uh end of June is his birthday. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02That's crazy. I I think I've known Parker for what 10 years? So he was a teenager when I knew him. He was a competitive male back then. He's still very much, I mean, he's massive.
SPEAKER_00He's still our most competitive male that we have.
SPEAKER_02But as they age and sort of what sort of geriatric effects do we see on our animals?
SPEAKER_00So a lot of my job as a mammologist is not just training them to do anything, but it's training them to do things that improve their welfare. So specifically for a geriatric animal, that's making sure that we can do quality vet exams on them, especially with an animal as large as Parker. If Parker does not feel like participating in something, that's all up to him. Um I cannot ask an 800-pound animal to do something it doesn't want to do. So with Parker, as he becomes more geriatric, the things we're looking at specifically are um how are his joints doing? 800 pounds is a lot of weight on an animal's shoulders or on their hips. How is he still eating normally? Is pretty much are we able to do all the diagnostics that we might want to? Um so Parker, again, we've said how many times he's a very good boy, but he really is the best. Uh so currently I'm working on um his x-ray behaviors. We can do voluntary x-rays on him, which is fun because he's actually so big that it's really hard to get a clear image on an x-ray because he is That's just all of his blubber. That's just all his blubber. We had detected arthritis in him a few years ago, and he's been on um Cosaquin, which is uh which helps with his arthritis. Um so we've been adjusting some of the ways we train him. We've been um retraining his ultrasound behavior, which he's had for a long time and is really good at, but now we're able to try and do it in the water where he's putting less pressure on his body. So a lot of our job as mammologists is to watch those changes and make sure that we are ahead of them and we are able to work with him as he needs to be worked with as he gets a little bit older.
SPEAKER_01That's so great. I also know a little bit about sea lion teeth, thanks to Erin Lundy, who has made a ton of very popular TikToks with me. And I know that their teeth can sometimes in the wild can sometimes lead to a lot of issues for them. And so here at the aquarium, we're able to extend their lifespan. That might be part of it, right? Is by the dental care that they receive.
SPEAKER_00It's definitely, yeah, it's definitely um different. It's with pinnipeds, it's interesting because their teeth aren't there like ours are there for chewing. Um they don't actually chew their food. No matter how big that herring is, if you throw it to, well, maybe not Parker, it's not a favorite, but if you throw it to cane or chase, they'll swallow it down completely whole. Um if a sea lion needs a fish smaller, usually those kind of thrash their heads around till it breaks into pieces. Um but their teeth are really critical for catching that fish. Um, it's critical for them to be able to get the food that they need to eat. And it's also a really important for them to be able to defend themselves. Their teeth is what they have to do. That so out in the wild, um as they get older, just like with anyone, um, the quality of those teeth are gonna deteriorate. Uh but here we do husband detects on them every morning. So I can actually ask them to open up their mouth. I can look at their gum health, I can look at their teeth. But sea lions are really interesting in that um, unlike seals or humans, uh they don't have enamel on their teeth that protects their teeth. Instead, they have this really beautiful black bacteria, so their teeth look they look really dirty and dark sometimes. But that is what healthy sea lion teeth look like. Um, it has that nice covering of bacteria to keep them safe.
SPEAKER_02Bacteria.
SPEAKER_00It's great.
SPEAKER_02We also had a sea lion here for a very long time. And for people who are maybe less familiar with the aquarium or have known of HARPO, Harpo unfortunately passed away last year. Um it was a little bit unexpected for us. But I bring up Harpo because as a yearling sea lion, I think he was only one year old, he developed a tooth and bone infection, and they were able to remove his teeth and they were able to rectify that infection. But for the duration of the period that he had that infection, he wouldn't eat because it's so painful. I mean I know I have a toothache and I can't even drink water, you know. And it's so painful that it sort of overrides their desire to eat. They're so like averse to it. And so I remember a couple of our volunteers who are wonderful and have worked with Harpo since he was young, described that they had to like sliver the capelin into like paper thin sheets and just kind of like slip it down his throat. And he would allow it because he was hungry, he just didn't want to use his teeth at all. And he recovered. And the funniest thing about Harpo is as he grew, his jaw didn't quite grow. Right, so his tongue just kind of always stuck out of his mouth. He was just the absolute best boy. But that dental care goes so far, and that issue, if that was a wild animal, would have never been rectified and he probably would have starved because that is so painful that that is just not something they can overcome.
SPEAKER_01I think it's just it just speaks so much to the love you guys have for the animals and the quality of care here at the aquarium that the staff then are just slivering as thin as possible. These just making these very gourmet sushi. Like that's an expensive cut of fish already.
SPEAKER_02Let alone cut properly for like hours and hours. And sea lions do not eat a small amount of food. They eat a lot of food, especially growing boys, they eat a lot of food. So I'm sure that was time intensive. He's such a good boy. It was it was worth it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it was worth it. Well, let's get into sea lion conservation. Speaking of kind of things that affect them in the wild. Last summer we had an event that happened here off of our coast here in Long Beach. Um, and all up and down. It makes it sound positive.
SPEAKER_02An event happened. An event happened.
SPEAKER_01It was not positive.
SPEAKER_02It was a bad event. It was a bad one. I think they describe it as a UME, which is an unusual mortality event for California sea lions and also other types of pinnipeds. But can you speak a little bit as to what happened and how frequently that happens?
SPEAKER_00Uh so this is not an unprecedented event. Um, it is when we end up with um higher levels of demoic acid out in our wild environment along our coasts here. Um my understanding of demoic acid is it comes from algae blooms. Um, so depending on how much upwelling we've had from the nutrient-rich um seafloor uh and how much how warm the water is, that affects how much the algae blooms, and then um the fish eat that algae, and then uh marine mammals eat that fish, and it can build up in their systems. Uh demoic acid, unfortunately, can cause seizures, it can cause um it's like neurological. Yeah, just different neurological problems that depending on the amount never actually go away. Um, and so these are animals that have been doing a really good job eating, and they have built up enough of that toxin in their bodies that then um they have those neurological issues and are no longer able to care for themselves, um, and they end up putting themselves up on the beach. It's really interesting working with a marine mammal that has demoic acid poisoning, because you can tell. Like you you look at them in the eye and you're like, no one's home. Like this is not a normal animal. Something's off. Uh and it's very sad. But we're very lucky that um we have a lot of incredible marine mammal rescues in our area, specifically closest to the Ukraine Pacific, is the Marine Mammal Care Center in San Pedro. And I'm really proud to work for a facility that is actually and works to send um people like me, like on our team, that have uh experience with marine mammals or specific rehabilitation experience to go help out at those facilities during these events where they have well over a hundred animals more um than they might normally have at that time of year, uh, who all need individual care and need um to be given the best chance to survive. And luckily there are animals that recover well enough to go back out into the wild. And there are also some that when they don't fully recover are able to go be ambassadors of their species, like our boys here at other facilities around the country.
SPEAKER_02It's cool to see sort of that whole process from start to finish. As devastating as it is, it's amazing to see people from different organizations and institutions come together and really become aware of this. And we had people who weren't directly working at the rehab center going out and walking the beaches and helping to report strandings that they were seeing so that the appropriate parties could come out and collect those animals and deliver them to the Marine Mammal Center for help. So it was a multifaceted response.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, last year was big. Yeah, it was a big team effort. Um, and just for anyone listening, if you ever are um out on one of our beaches and you see an animal that you think might be in distress, uh the best thing you can do is to start by keeping your distance. You don't want an animal that might be sick for you to approach it and then they get scared and then they put themselves back in the water where they had already worked so hard to get themselves out. Uh and just call one of the local rescues. Um honestly, if you Google the number, it's gonna come up. We'll put it in the show notes too. People can you can add it in your phone to spray an animal rescue. Uh and they will know um how to work with that animal. They'll be able to come out, inspect that animal, see if it's one that um meets the criteria for coming into one of those rescues for a little bit.
SPEAKER_02I laugh because oh I've a handful of times just seen an elephant seal hauled out on the beach when I've been looking for them. And if you didn't know that that was normal for them, they look pretty they look pretty down when they're gonna be. That's very true.
SPEAKER_00Especially if you see a molting elephant seal. They look a little rough.
SPEAKER_02And they smell terrible. You're like, something's definitely wrong here. That's just been super.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, they are semi-aquatic animals. They are supposed to spend some time on land.
SPEAKER_01Um, interesting way to start your career here at the aquarium is to experience that an event like that and going back and forth. That must have been a really interesting start to your summer.
SPEAKER_00It definitely was, but it was also really nice um going back, because that's actually where I started. So it was people I knew, it was um a facility I knew, I knew how it all worked. It was really nice. It was really good.
SPEAKER_01I want to hear again, uh, you're talking about molting animals. Do our sea lions molt? Do sea lions molt at all?
SPEAKER_00They do, yeah. Not in the same way an elephant seal molts. An elephant seal has what we call a catastrophic molt where it molts all of it all at the same time. The skin, the fur, yeah. They look they look rough uh during that time. Snow rough, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Just awful.
SPEAKER_00But uh I like elephant seals for the record. I just they're they gross a little bit. They're a little stinky. Like a monk. Um, but if you if no one's ever seen an elephant seal pup, you should look it up because they are very cute. They're huge, but they're very cute.
SPEAKER_02Can you imitate the sound that they make?
SPEAKER_00I can't. Um but it does sound like a monkey. It's a very weird sound. It's really nothing like getting into the rescue at 5 a.m., opening your car door, and just hearing the yelling and like the smell hits you all at the same time. It's actually very nostalgic for me, which is weird.
SPEAKER_02I think it's great work that we're doing, but man, there is a specific marine mammal stink, especially around molting season.
SPEAKER_00It's true, yeah. So our boys do get uh a little stinky during molting season. Um, but theirs is not nearly as dramatic. Um they just pretty much for us, we just start finding um small piles of fur along our desk for our decks, sorry, desks to deliver it to us. Uh and mostly just where the sea lions all sleep together. You just kind of find these piles of um fur and oil that you have.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, the oil is something I didn't expect. Yeah, the oil is impressive. That's probably what the smell comes from most of the things. And it stains.
SPEAKER_00Honestly, though, even not during molting season, a dry marine mammal stinky is a little stinky.
SPEAKER_02People who have a lot of black. They're blonde are very clean. If you've ever been to San Francisco and you've seen all the sea lions lying out on the pier, just get a good whiff of that. And that's what they smell like. It's intense. Like it is a musky kind of like ocean, but stinky odor.
SPEAKER_00Like, which is interesting because our sea otters who are actual mustelids who are a musky group of animals, not stinky.
SPEAKER_01What role do sea lions play in the in the wild? What is their if something if if sea lions aren't doing well, kind of what is that cause and effect?
SPEAKER_00Um so well, we're really lucky in that in general sea lions have been doing very well for a long time, especially our California sea lions. But they are um one of the top predators, um, and so they help control um fish populations and make sure that those stay healthy. Uh anytime any population ends up too big, then their food source ends up being overused. And it's just kind of this cyclical problem of um an ecosystem is really good at balancing itself. So anytime you remove any part of that, you're gonna start seeing problems. Um, so for sea lions, it would be specifically um those schooling fish. Uh, but luckily they are a pretty healthy wild population, and I think a big part of that is they're very easy to love, and people tend to protect what they love. Um and so sea lions have had a lot of support for a long time, uh, especially when it comes to places like the marine mammal rescues. Um so we're really happy to be able to showcase them and have people who love them come see them, but also then potentially learn about some of the other animals we have at the aquarium that might need a little bit more help out in the wild.
SPEAKER_01I love that. You protect what you love. So we try and get people here to love everything. Yes. You start with the easy thing. You start with the cute with the with the cute and charismatic animals, like the sea otters and the sea lions. And then you just like throw a sea cucumber at them and you're like, these are fun too.
SPEAKER_02What do you think my whole job otters and frogs? I'm like, hey, sea otters, also from these two. By the time this podcast episode comes out, too, I do think that we will have our pinniped encounters back up and running. So if you ever want to meet or smell or touch or whatever, a piniped, um, that's an opportunity you might get if you do a pinniped encounter. And so sign up through our website if you'd like to meet Aaron or Aaron or any of the people who work with our marine mammals. Um they can also help you propose.
SPEAKER_01That's true. Propose prom, propose marriage, propose. Yeah, we had a prom post. Whatever you want to propose. Those are my favorite days. I love when I walk up and you're like, there's a proposal, and I'm so worried I'm gonna blow it.
SPEAKER_02Like I'm just gonna walk up to the couple and be like, so today's just staring at them so oddly, and they're like, they're all encounters this conspicuous. But anyway, it's it's cool, and they're great ambassador animals for other species. And people, it's there's nothing like it, you know, just meeting a sea line. You're like, that's a the thing I can do.
SPEAKER_01I forget when I bring people up for uh encounters, you know, it's that realization, like, oh, behind from the other side, they don't seem as massive or as big. Yeah, it's especially close.
SPEAKER_00When people meet Parker um and they watch him walk up the steps to the area where we normally do encounters, they're like, that's a little scarier than I'm responding towards me. Yeah, it's a good.
SPEAKER_01But he's such a sweet boy.
SPEAKER_00And we were really lucky to be able to do these encounters because the ones out in the wild might not be such sweet boys. Parker has been taught since he was very little what uh safe interaction with people looks like. Um, because I certainly would not want an 800-pound animal who didn't know that I was fragile that close to me.
SPEAKER_01No, you definitely don't want to do sea light encounter encounters in the wild.
SPEAKER_02Just stick to stick to the specifics. I think it's also illegal to approach marine mammals. Definitely.
SPEAKER_01Cool. Well, let's get into our boys. Parker, Cain, and Chase. Are they rescue animals? Are they eligible for re-release? Tell us a little bit about how we acquired them.
SPEAKER_00So all of our current population was all born under human care for our pinniped population in general. One of them, Kaya, or one of our harbor seals, was born right here on our exhibit. I saw it. It's crazy. Oh that was a cool day. Yeah. I'm jealous. Oh, she was there. Uh and then the other ones were born at other facilities and then um came to us. One of the really nice things about being part of AZA is we're able to work with other um zoos and aquariums to make sure that all the animals um born under human care have a good place for them to live where they can thrive. Um because any animal that is actually born under here under human care uh is a non-releasable animal. Um, they are not eligible to go back out into that wild environment and for a pretty good reason. They don't have the skills that they would need to survive out there. Parker, since he was really little, has learned that the best way to get fish is to be polite and to um hang out with people and kind of um help create those relationships, whereas a sea lion out in the wild learns pretty early on that the best way to get fish is to fight with other sea lions. Very impolite. Yeah. It's not it's not nearly as chill. Um so these sea lions are all non-releasable animals. Um they will be uh with us or at another facility for the rest of their lives, um being ambassadors for their counterparts out in the wild. Uh, and we are very happy to have them. Yeah, we have to do that. We have some really good boys.
SPEAKER_01So Parker, Kane, and Chase. We talked a lot about Parker already, but tell us a little bit about more, a little more about Kane and Chase. Sure.
SPEAKER_00They are very funny. So we talked about Parker's age. He is about to be 22. Kane and Chase are about half that age. Um Chase earlier in June turned 10, officially. It's a 10-year-old boy, and then Kane's birthday is a little bit later, and he's gonna be 11. So um they're both effectively middle-aged boys, but I think of them as so young as compared to Parker. Uh, but they are they're very similar in a lot of ways, but also pretty distinctly different animals. I think the reason Kane is the favorite of all of the errands um is because he's just he's a very, he's a very smart animal. Um he really seems to, he shows us that puzzles and thinking through problems is something that he finds reinforcing, that he finds enriching. Uh, and I find that very fun. That's also very reinforcing and enriching for me when working with him. Um he's just always trying to figure out what you're gonna ask next. And a lot of the times he's right. Um sometimes he's super wrong. Um, but that's also fun. He commits to it. He does, he does. He's f he's very certain he's right sometimes. Um but then once you show him that like maybe that wasn't what we were going for, he's like, okay, never mind. I'll try again. Uh and then Chase. Chase similarly also sometimes tries to figure out what we want him to do. He commits to everything. He commits real hard. Um even once you've told him, like, maybe that wasn't what we were going for. He's like, nah, I'm pretty sure. He's like, what if you wanted to do this?
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I think I could do it. Yeah. Sometimes I describe Chase as like first thought, best thought. Um that's a good description to Chase. And he's just like, I'll keep doing it eventually. That's what you'll want. Um This is what I want it to be. Yeah. Yeah. But I think a lot of that also comes from he's also a very smart animal. Um he just he wants things to be the way he's decided they are. Yep. Uh, but we're able to work with him. We make sure that we are very clear with what we are asking. Um and he is really fun. I know he's actually a lot of people's favorites. Um just Megan. Yeah. Just his his personality is um, he's a very good communicator, I think, is what I will describe Chase as.
SPEAKER_01He has four vocals. That's how much he can communicate.
SPEAKER_02That's true. And we can insert a clip of him making all the weird stuff. But it turns out sea lions can make a wider array of noises than I've ever imagined, and most of that I learned from Chase making a very wide array. Maybe no one else.
SPEAKER_00We did finally get the sound that sounds just like a typical sea lion, which is nice. We did finally land on that.
SPEAKER_02Three first vocals he learned sound nothing like the typical. Maybe his big boy bark is kind of like an aggressive, like sea lion fighting bark, but they're all just on cue behaviors, and so he he can sing an opera. It's very important. He can gargle and then he can bark big and bark small.
SPEAKER_00Big, bark, small, bark. Yeah. And cute Chase or no, sorry, Kane can do two of those.
SPEAKER_01He can do that heavily. Yeah. From my perspective, uh just knowing kind of the dynamics of it, it seems like Kane has been a slightly more uh challenging animal to train. Do you think that's due to his intelligence? Or is that kind of the reason that uh he is a favorite too? Because he is such a challenge sometimes.
SPEAKER_02I think he used to be much more of a challenge to work with, but I think it was because he was nervous. And I mean honestly same. But um, you know, animals that especially intelligent animals that can perceive the environment around them and understand what's going on, can there's so much stimulus. And he was new to us. He came to us when he was about four years old. Yeah. And so, you know, he went from one home that he understood and friends that he knew to a totally new place, and it took him a while to adjust, as it can, you know. When I started here, Kane was brand new, and he would come to sessions by staying underwater with just his eyes under the surface of the water. He's like, I'm really trying to be here, but I don't understand what's going on. And you know, it was just every day, just loving on him and making sure he knew that, hey, what we're doing is totally safe, and it took some time to come out of his shell. Now I would argue that Chase is more difficult to work with, but mostly because Kane has gained so much confidence in the last few years that he is just ready to go. He's doing encounters, he's meeting people, he's sticking his tongue out. Yeah, he's not nervous about a seagull flying three miles away.
SPEAKER_00Like he's I wore a rain jacket with him the other day. And he was like, I can come up on deck next to it. That's probably safe.
SPEAKER_02Chase, on the other hand, rain jacket? Oh my gosh.
SPEAKER_00Someone someone wore an x-ray vest, the lead vests, um, into the exhibit like 20 feet away from him, and he did his like tiny little bark like sunk under water.
SPEAKER_02He's like, No, they're coming for me for some reason that outfit so specifically.
SPEAKER_00He has he has since um allowed that to exist with his within his environment a little bit better. But that's why when we talk about Parker being a very um good, sweet, brave boy, uh, it's usually just in comparison to Kane and Chase, who are still figuring that out.
SPEAKER_02They're working Parker's got a good 10 years on him. Yeah, he's way advanced. And he's older, so he's chilled out a little bit. Whereas I think at when they were especially a little bit younger, it's everything they're gonna react to, because like I've never seen a seagull before. I've never seen this before.
SPEAKER_01Despite um being neutered, do you see any changes in Cain and Chase during the summertime?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, they definitely um I mean, I can't speak to the science of whether there's also hormonal changes happening in them now that they're neutered, but they're 100% reacting to the change in Parker. Um and so when sometimes when Parker stops to eat, like stops eating, um, Kane and Chase are also like, I guess. I guess we're also hormones are gonna be like, he's our leader, so what that is. Whereas the seals are just hanging out being like, no, that's fine. We still want our snacks. Seals don't care at all about what the seal lines are up to. They really don't. They're they're good neighbors. Um uh but yeah, they definitely do react to the changes uh in Parker. Um and I know at least for Chase, he seems like he was neutered a little bit older because you can see like the beginnings of a sagittal crest. I kind of see that.
SPEAKER_01He is he is very distinct looking. Yeah, he's bigger than Canis.
SPEAKER_02Um he was neutered here at the aquarium when he was about four. Oh wow. So he had probably gone through a little bit of puberty before. Um so yeah, he kind of looks like a little egghead.
SPEAKER_01Makes so much sense. He looks so different than the other sea lions. And it it's funny because the pictures that were taken of Chase before he like officially went on exhibit, I don't feel like that looks like him. He looks so different now. And he looks so different underwater. Yeah. Underwater, he has like the biggest eyes. He's like he's very, very cute. But like very much.
SPEAKER_00In the tunnel, he's like, This is my place. I get this. This is great.
SPEAKER_01Speaking of in the tunnel, Chase is very interactive. Um, I know during the pandemic in our closures, uh, he was probably the animal that was looking for interaction, and we were all happy to give it to him.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, our our guests are incredible source of enrich sources of enrichment for all of our animals, um, particularly Chase. Uh all of our guests are always doing something new and different and interesting. Um, and all of our animals, especially our mammals, are watching you guys through that window.
SPEAKER_02That's thrilling for people to realize the animals can see us just as well as we can see them through the window. For any of our guests who might be visiting the aquarium, how would they be able to tell Parker versus Chain Chain face?
SPEAKER_01Just two together. Chain or something.
SPEAKER_02But how could someone conceivably tell the difference between Parker and Cain and Chase?
SPEAKER_00So um Parker, definitely the easiest one. Uh you can't tell him apart. Yeah. If if there's one that's just like real big and you're like, really kind of nice chocolatey brown color. Um, he's a very handsome man. Uh and then Kane and Chase for the train die are actually look pretty differently from each other. Um I think it can be a little trickier for people unlike us who don't stare at sea lions all day, every day. Uh but Chase is a little bit bigger. Um, he is a little bit longer, and he has kind of silvery blonde fur, um, kind of gray compared if you sat him next to Kane.
SPEAKER_02Who's more warm tone? Yeah, exactly. It's a cool versus warm-tone situation.
SPEAKER_00Chase is also a little bit more of a blockhead. Like he's got a big old head. Literally and figuratively. Um and then Kane is kind of pointy. He's a little bit of a pointy long boy. Yeah. Yeah, I think the easiest way to tell the difference between Kane and Chase is really um some behavioral things, but really one just has a big old face.
SPEAKER_01So cool. Okay, I want to hear more about their veterinary care here at the aquarium. I know we have things that we do yearly, like an annual exam. You're doing blood draw on a potentially 800-pound animal, you're doing x-rays, um, you're doing surgeries, you're doing all of these things. Can you talk a little bit about um how they volunteer to participate in these things and and what the day-to-day of them is like?
SPEAKER_00Absolutely, because you've touched on my favorite part of my job. I really enjoy husbandry. I think it's a really clear example of our relationship with these animals. You're asking them to do something that puts them in a somewhat vulnerable position a lot of the time. Um, and you can see as you build a relationship with them, their willingness to be vulnerable changes. Um, and it's always very exciting as you see them start to trust you. Um But our the basic idea of our housing behaviors is um so that our animals can voluntarily. Participate in their health care. Like we said, Parker, a very large boy. There is not much you can ask an animal that large to do if they don't want to. So the things we mainly focus on are them being willing to go into different areas of our exhibit where if they were sick, we could ask them to go in there. They could get some individualized care. We work on some diagnostic things, like we work on them doing voluntary x-rays where they'll lay on top of an x-ray plate, and we have this really cool portable x-ray that actually brought into our exhibit to get x-rays of these animals. We do voluntary eye drops. Parker is on an eyedrop every single day. And he is better at them than any person I have ever encountered.
SPEAKER_01Better than me.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02I hate doing eye drops. I have an anecdote about doing eye drops. So at one point, I had to give eye drops to another human. And I had always, in my career, given eye drops to marine mammals. And when you are giving eye drops to marine mammals, you sort of want to go really high with it just in case they sort of jerk their head or something unexpected happens. You don't want to poke their eye. And so, you know, I'm used to aiming an eye drop from like two feet in the air. And so my natural instinct when someone was like, hey, can you help me with eye drops? I'm really bad at like receiving them or like doing them myself. My arm just automatically like two feet over their eye and as they were lying down. And it hit their eye with such velocity, and they described it as being so cold. And I had never thought about the impact of that to you. And the sea lions are used to it. You know, like that's their normal. But humans just kind of like put it in because they're not gonna jerk their head while they're doing an eye drop. But yeah, so don't give other people. What about to yourself?
SPEAKER_01Do you find yourself like leaning?
SPEAKER_02No, it was the funniest moment because I was like, my natural instant, like I'm happy to do eye drops. Open your eye and my arms two feet above your head.
SPEAKER_00It's just a fun skill we get. It's like that aim is pretty impressive. Every once in a while I miss though, and just like hits him in the eyebrow, and I'm like, I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_01They're already wet, doesn't matter. They're fine. We had a video go viral of Parker getting his eye drops, and people are like, so what? He lives underwater, his eyes are open all the time. And I'm like, okay, well, you try giving an 800-pound animal eye drops. It is very good. And Parker's impressive that he stands still and just looks up like it's the sweetest face.
SPEAKER_02With the sweetest little face you've ever seen in your whole life. And then sometimes there's so much trust in the face. He gets shy and he gets a little mohawk. Yeah, it's mohawk's really good. Parker is the only one with a mohawk, so if you ever see a sea one with a mohawk, that's really the most important way to tell him.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. It's Parker.
SPEAKER_02So Parker, to my understanding, is trained to do a voluntary blood draw. What does that look like for a sea lion to volunteer his blood to you?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So um there are multiple strategies that you can get voluntary blood samples from a sea lion. Um, but the way we do it with Parker is um we ask him to lay down on our deck, and people will go behind him to his back flippers, and he does this very cute thing where he angles his head slightly to the side. He keeps it nice and down on the deck, but he's like, I want to look at you while you do that. I'm like, you know what? That's understandable. I would also want to look at the person messing with my feet. Yep. He lays in that position while we clean around his flipper, while the vet staff palpate his flipper to see where that vein is. Um, sometimes while we put uh warm water on a warm compress on top of a slipper because um sea lions will shunt their blood to their core so that they can stay warm enough, meaning that they don't always have a lot in those flippers uh when they're cold. And we're able to um do a voluntary stick. Honestly, I think the stick is not the hardest part of that behavior. It's that animal feeling comfortable with the extended amount of time that they are laying in that position while people mess around with their body. Um I think people usually anticipate the stick being the hard part. They don't notice, right? They don't notice, they don't mind. Um and then we're able to, once the needle's in, um, just fill up a bunch of blood draw like blood vials, which is really nice because that only not only allows us to do whatever current diagnostics we're looking for, but it allows us to bank blood so we know what's normal for this animal. Um and we have all these backups for knowing when things change as he gets older.
SPEAKER_02It's impressive to watch our veterinary team do blood draws on pinnipeds, which have the smallest vessels. You know, like they are not easy. And I've seen, you know, nurses and people who have taken my blood, and I've certainly seen how difficult it can be with no fur on my little elbow pit, whatever that is, right there. Yeah, no hair in there, the veins very visible, and it still is difficult. And so watching our veterinarians take it from this like fur-covered, yeah, like very.
SPEAKER_00You can maybe feel it, but you can't see it.
SPEAKER_01And I I think I knew that about them, what do you call shunting their blood? That's so fascinating. So that just adds another. I wish I could do that.
SPEAKER_02Shunt your blood. No, your hands would be so cold. My hands are already cold. I know you're cold all the time. You can't shunt your blood.
SPEAKER_01Maybe you can shunt your blood, and that's what we're doing.
SPEAKER_02Oh, you shunt it the opposite direction. I've already been shunting my blood. But that behavior and is also related to the reason why we don't sedate Parker or actually any pinnipeds very often, that blood shunting is part of their dive response. And what is a dive response and how does it impact sort of anesthetizing or sedating a sealing?
SPEAKER_00So there's the mammalian dive response. So it's actually something that you and I also have.
SPEAKER_02You can shunt your blood.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00So if you um what happens is when a mammal's face goes into cold water, the body's automatic response is to have your heartbeat slow down and just kind of start to conserve resources, um, specifically the oxygen within your blood. Um, so for seals and sea lions, well, we technically have the same response. Theirs is a little bit more impressive than ours. In college, I did actually um do an experiment where we put heart monitors on and then just literally, literally into a bucket of cold water put our face and watch the change. And this is a side note, but my um lab partner and I did get caught by the um by the TA literally googling what happens when you put your face in a bucket. We were not paying a lot of attention, but I understand it now. Um anyway, for seals and sea lions, um, that heart rate slows down significantly so that they can be as efficient as possible with the oxygen content of their blood. Um, and they are obviously underwater, so they will stop breathing and they will be able to dive for really impressive amounts of time. Sea lions um can dive for up to about 20 minutes holding their breath that entire time. Uh, and so when they are put under anesthesia, um, that causes their bodies to react in a similar way. Um so they will often stop breathing on their own. And we are able to breathe for them in that context. But then being able to signal to their body that it is now time to start again can be really tricky, um, which is particularly why, unless it is critical um for an exam, which sometimes it is, um, we want to do everything voluntarily. We don't want to need to put them in that risk, even though we do have a highly skilled vet team um who can mitigate a lot of that risk. We would rather avoid it and do things um voluntarily when we can, especially like those x-rays, those ultrasounds. The blood draw for parts.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yeah. It's cool. It's weird to think about your body just being like, yeah, I shouldn't breathe. I'm probably underwater.
SPEAKER_01You're like, no, you're just out and about, but it's crazy. That's part of the reason people sometimes forget animals like these are mammals, that they actually can't breathe underwater, but they're just really good.
SPEAKER_00They're just really effective at being underwater. Um correct me if I'm wrong, but it's like part of it, they have like higher levels of hemoglobin. I think so. Myoglobin? Hemoglobin. Whatever makes their blood crazy red. Yeah, it's really bright red. Real red. Yeah. Um, and so they're able to carry more oxygen in their blood. One of my favorite things is like, so like part of my job and just part of what I do for fun is scuba diving. And one of the things that human divers have to think about is getting the bends as um nitrogen builds up in your system. Uh, but one of the really cool things about pinnipeds is they actually don't end up with a lot of air pockets in their body. They're very compressible. So as they dive, there isn't um anywhere for that nitrogen to build up in the same way.
SPEAKER_02Shoot down and shoot up as Don't their lungs collapse totally so that all of their oxygen gets dissolved in their blood. It's very weird. They're what they do diving is But they're like their ribs are very flexible.
SPEAKER_00Um and they're just adapting.
SPEAKER_01It's kind of like they don't have to the very fast-flying birds that have to come to a sudden stop. Like they're literally built to do that. Yeah. And here's another animal whose lungs can collapse.
SPEAKER_02Built to spend a lot of time underwater. It's both hemo and myo. Oh. Because hemo is a big thing. Should have said that more confidently. Like myo is for muscles. And so we have both. And so they have a better capacity to store oxygen in their blood and their muscles. And so they're way better at diving than we ever will be. And they can hold their breath for way longer.
SPEAKER_00But they actually exhale as they dive as opposed to us when we go underwater. We normally do that big inhale. Um, but obviously, if their lungs are collapsing, that would not be very helpful.
SPEAKER_01Fascinating. I want to talk about a behavior that they do, which is you'll see them here at the aquarium with one of their flippers sticking straight up. Sailing. It's so sweet.
SPEAKER_00What is what's that about? It's one of the ways that they're able to thermoregulate. It's one of the ways that they control their temperature. Um, so they're uh flippers are pretty highly vasculated. Um, they have a lot of like surface-level um blood vessels, and so when they are um a little bit too warm, they can expose that flipper to the air and have like the water evaporate off it. They don't sweat like we do, um, but it's the same idea of that like liquid evaporating off your skin helps cool you down. Um and then when they're a little bit too cold, you'll often see them on land and they'll tuck their flippers up under their belly. Um and it's very cute, and they'll keep them nice and warm against themselves. They look like a sweet potato and they do that. They do the sweetest potato.
SPEAKER_01They are sweet little potatoes. We talked a little bit about their behaviors and training already, but I would love to talk kind of how that relates to their enrichment because I know you guys are training them to do things like jumps in the air, sticking their tongue out, barking. Um those are very important medical. I agree, I fully agree. But I know that is enriching to them and to an animal that is so intelligent and needs a lot of that stimulation. Can you talk a little bit about what that enrichment looks like?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so um, when it comes to the training side of things, one of the biggest things we're looking for in addition to those um husbandry or medical behaviors is that mental stimulation. Um, an animal out in the wild is using their brain all day, every day, just in order to survive. Um, and at the aquarium, for good reason, we've covered a lot of those basic survival needs for them. Uh we're providing that fish. We have not allowed there to be predators in their um environment, but we still want them to use that incredible brain that they have. Um so we talked about cane liking to solve puzzles. That's where that comes from, um, is their ability to solve problems out in the wild. We have them solve those problems under human care by learning new things. Um, it's really fun teaching them new things because they don't speak English. So you're trying to kind of nudge them in the right direction when they have that light bulb moment of they're like, oh, I got this. They get so into it. It is a very exciting thing for them, and honestly, so exciting for us. Uh the cheers you hear from people sometimes when that like approximation towards like a new behavior has been successful is very exciting. Um, so it's one of the ways that we keep their days enriching. Um, but on top of that, we also have uh literal objects that we can provide that involve them working in different ways for their food. Um, we have feeder balls where they um literally it looks like a lot of dog toys, just large. Um, and it's a big old ball that has holes in it that they have to move around the water and the fish slowly fall out. Um, and it's very fun watching because every once in a while a sea lion will have it, but they'll miss a fish, and one of the seals is just like waiting to grab the drops. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01You have the intelligence, and then you have the intelligence of the animal who's just waiting for the for them to do the work for it.
SPEAKER_00It's really great. Um, or you have one of the seals has gotten the feeder toy, and one of the sea lions who thinks they're all big and strong is like, I'm gonna go take it. And our 35-year-old harbor seal Ellie is like, No, you're not. This is mine. Um and then on top of that, we have just different um things that we do throughout the day. So we can change up when they get fed. Um, we can do one of my favorite is um called Fish from Heaven, where we go hide somewhere outside their exhibit and we just start throwing fish in the water. And um, we're probably not as good as we could be, but in theory, they don't know where that's coming from, and it kind of comes out of nowhere. Like, whoa, fish. Yeah, and then they get that kind of opportunistic feed. But a lot of our enrichment program is designed for that mental mental and physical stimulation in ways that um promotes natural behaviors of things they would do out in the wild, which is why so much of it is focused around food. That's a lot of what an animal's life out in the wild is focused around, is just getting enough food.
SPEAKER_02It's a lot of eating. It's a lot of eating. I think um when you're talking about training and you're talking about just people getting very excited too. It is funny to see, like, when we are training our animals, we mark good behavior the same way that people training their dogs use a clicker or you know, like whatever it is. And we use the word good typically to mark good behavior, and we think that we're very scientific and very good trainers, and we're like good, and it always sounds good because the key is consistency in the tone of your bridge or that mark, but we get so excited, and you go from hearing this like very sharp, like consistent good across the exhibit to someone's working on something, and it's like good and it's just like the squeakiest, highest pitched, longest bridge, and it probably it has become reinforcing to the animals over time. But it is funny to see people just totally lose composure because it's so exciting when you're like, I have communicated something to a totally different species that understands what I'm asking, and we got it. We work together, we do.
SPEAKER_01It's pretty cool. That's amazing. Okay, with that, I think we'll get into our social media questions. Oh, yeah. Instagram followers, you can follow us at Aquarium Pacific and at Podcific. That's where we post where to submit your questions. So the first question is where does their name come from? How were they named sea lions? Where do you think that came from?
SPEAKER_00Um, I actually don't know the for sure history behind this. Um, but my assumption would be is if anyone's ever looked at a southern sea lion, um, they have this big, kind of thick layer of fur mane around their necks that helps protect them. And you look at one of them and you're like, oh, that's that's a lion that lives in the ocean. Um that's a mermaid lion. Yeah, but in other languages, not necessarily like English. I know in Spanish sometimes um it translates to like wolf of the sea. Um, and a lot of people often compare them to dogs. You can kind of see that similar uh physiology. Um but I think also that big roar that they have. Some people call it a bark, sometimes it sounds like a bark, sometimes they just scream and it sounds like a roar.
SPEAKER_02Um we can have Chase's bark versus Chase's roar. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And then you can decide if they're wolves or lions. That's a good idea. I love that. Do they have a good sense of smell? They have a pretty impressive sense of smell for an animal that spends a lot of its time underwater. With its nostrils sealed closed. Yeah, with nostrils literally closed.
SPEAKER_01It's really cool to see them underwater. You see them just totally shut to keep water out. And then the second they get off the door.
SPEAKER_00Their little noses look like little hearts. If you ever get a print of a sea lion nose, it's literally shaped like a little heart. It's very cute. Um, I know every time we talk about them, it's just more that makes them really good at being in the ocean, which is like, I guess, their main deal. Um I guess that's a point. They're called sea lions, I guess. So yeah, they do have a pretty good sense of smell. Um, the first thing that comes to mind for me for why that's important is it's one of the ways that moms recognize their pups. Um so when their pup has gotten a little bit older and they're go the mom's going to forage and start to eat again, uh, they want to find the correct pup again. And one of the ways they can do that is how that pup smells. That's my stinky voice. My stinky little girl. I do find it impressive that they can tell the difference because they're all real stinky.
SPEAKER_02I think some of it's how they sound too, right? They call to their pupils.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, they definitely yell to back and forth for their little like the babies are so sad sounding. Who is the loudest sea lion? Um Kane.
SPEAKER_02It's I don't get a decibel meter and just land right in front of the meter.
SPEAKER_00So I was like, Parker's is so deep. Yes, it's cane too. Yeah. Yeah. But like it's it's definitely a really impressive sound. Like, I think if I heard that one out of nowhere, that might be the most like intimidating to me.
SPEAKER_01Who's the most intimidating is a different question.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00But I think I think Keynes is probably the most painful to hear, really close to your ear. But I think Harpo was the loudest.
SPEAKER_02Harpo was pretty darn loud. Yeah. Because he also liked to lean in for it. I think he got a kick out of like getting people to jump a little bit. He's like, whoa, I'm gonna be super loud right now.
SPEAKER_01I think that question does come from our our very first viral TikTok, which was who is the loudest sea line at the aquarium? And Harpo completely took the cake. Um, it was really funny because I was working with Jeff and Harpo on that last scene in the TikTok, and Jeff uh cued Harpo to interrupt me, which I think adds to the hilariousness of the video. And it's just so good. It's just he just is screaming in my face, and it's it was wonderful. Yeah, I'm so lucky. Blessed. Blessed and blessed. And that's pinned to our TikTok profile. I'll probably link. I'll link every sea lion video we have. I'll just link everything in the link and by the way. They're not my favorite or anything, it's not obvious. You can tell her anything. She won't listen. Goji's like, I don't care. She cannot hear. I have nine brains. I care about very different things that we care about. How have people studied their physiological adaptations, like their breath hold and their depth of dive?
SPEAKER_02I think some of it is done at the Longmarine Lab and similar research places. And animals can actually be trained to participate in these types of things, which is crazy. Um, I don't know specifically if they've just recorded the longest dive they've ever seen or they trained a sea lion to dive very deep, but they certainly can participate in sort of metabolic and oxygen consumption studies and get an understanding of what their bodies are capable of. And so there are some amazing research labs that train marine mammals to participate so we understand how their bodies work, and that information can then inform decisions on like what's healthy in the ocean and what should we be doing? How loud can sounds be without bothering. There are things like that that are important. But I'm sure some of it is also observational data too. Like if you're like a hundred, a thousand feet down at the bottom of the ocean, you see a sea lion, you're like, hey, that's a sea lion.
SPEAKER_01Um we have a very interesting question here. Who is the cutest and why is it Chase? From Megan Smiley, this podcast.
SPEAKER_00A little bit biased. He is pretty cute. I do think it's the blockhead part of him.
SPEAKER_02He looks like a giant egg. He does.
SPEAKER_00He's just a big old egg.
SPEAKER_02Which is cute.
SPEAKER_00It is really cute. I think it depends on literally which one of them is currently directly in front of me. And I'm like, that's probably the cutest sea lion I've ever seen.
SPEAKER_02I mean, Parker right up close with his big old buttons.
SPEAKER_01Big eyes, big brown eyes, nice.
SPEAKER_02And he has a really cute little face. Like and he sticks out his tongue and he gets a mohawk. Then you see Kane and you're like, well, he's tiny and he's smart.
SPEAKER_00And also he has a nice tactile behavior where you can reach out and he leans his neck into your hand, and that's like just very sweet and reinforcing for me personally. Then you have Chase. You have Chase, and you're like, that's pretty cute. And he sings at you.
SPEAKER_02And he really commits to every guest.
SPEAKER_01He works so hard. They're also charming in their own ways.
SPEAKER_02They really are. So sweet. Um, so to answer your question, Megan, it's not necessarily Chase.
SPEAKER_01Depends on Hebs.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's true. Uh Chase is such a fan favorite, though. He is so he's like the jock of the game.
SPEAKER_01He is the jock, he's the quarterback.
SPEAKER_02He is athletic for sure. Yeah. And I do think he's smart. He's just smart in a way that he understands and I maybe don't know.
SPEAKER_01Wait, okay, so if Chase is the jock.
SPEAKER_00Kane is like this is my favorite game.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_00Take it away. I think Kane is um more like the he's not like a nerd. He's like popular, but he's definitely in like advanced placement classes. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02He's a little, he could be a little competitive with everyone about it, too. He's like, what did you get on your test? Yeah. That's exactly what it is.
SPEAKER_01Um Parker. ASB president.
SPEAKER_02Weed is too. He's so such a good boy.
SPEAKER_00I feel like he's everyone's older brother. You know, like he's like the one that you watch, like, here's like, oh, you're gonna be real successful in life.
SPEAKER_02He's prom king, he's all over.
SPEAKER_00And he's just nice to everyone, which is funny to say because he is our most dominant male.
SPEAKER_02He is sweet. He's a sweet boy.
SPEAKER_00That's how far.
SPEAKER_01He is sensitive though. Sweet and sensitive. Yeah, that's a good combo. Um, amazing. Outside of their pods or families in the oceans, um, do they have friend groups?
SPEAKER_00Um, so uh once like a sea lion has weaned from its mom and starts to be on its own, they tend to hang out in like juvenile groups um as they get a little bit bigger. Um, usually juvenile males and the females are a little bit more separate. Um and then as they get bigger and bigger, then they kind of end up with their own harem of females during breeding season. Um and the females will all kind of hang out together um with whoever their big male is out on the beach. Uh but the nice thing about sea lions is while they might not stick to the same social groupings all the time, they are very social, which is why you always get those really cool videos of them all sleeping together out on a dock and there's just like 40 sea lions all smushed together. Um Figmo tactic.
SPEAKER_02They want to touch each other, but they gravitate towards uh physical contact. Which is interesting. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Do they have any favorite petting spots or are they ticklish?
SPEAKER_00I have never experienced one being. Ticklish in the way that I think we would think about them being ticklish, but I've also, to be honest, never tried to tickle them normally. I'm uh keeping my distance a little bit more than that. Um, but like I think mentioned earlier, um, Kane definitely leans into um when we scratch along his neck, and whether that is because we always feed him a lot of fish for that or because it also feels nice when we do it, uh, they don't speak English, so we can't ask specifically. Yeah, exactly. Um so sea lions are tactical animals, like tactile animals with each other. Tactical animals are tactile animals. Um, but we don't um spend a lot of our time just petting them.
SPEAKER_02No.
SPEAKER_00Usually we got other stuff we gotta work on.
SPEAKER_02I think that the inverse can be said. They definitely have least favorite petting spots. Very true. They don't really like being touched on their face, they don't really like being touched on their belly, and I think they are essentially still wild animals in their core. And so anything that feels vulnerable to them, they are extremely wary of. And if you're touching a spot where they're like, hey, that's all of my organs, or that's my whole face, they're gonna be a little bit weirder about it. So they definitely have more preferred and less preferred, but I don't know that it's necessarily I want to be pet here. It's more when I get pet here, I get fed a lot of food here.
SPEAKER_01It's pretty good. Do you are they susceptible to uh diseases like rabies or things that our land mammals are susceptible to?
SPEAKER_00Uh they certainly can be. Um they are mammals, and um I know with the uh avian influenza they have detected that in some pinnipeds. Um things like rabies, as far as I know, um there has not been a case in the US of um a pinniped contracting rabies, or at least not one that we have caught.
SPEAKER_02I would be so scared of that.
SPEAKER_00That would be very scary. Um kind of going back to the Jamok acid. Like any animal that large when they're not fully in control. Yeah. It's a little frightening. Uh but I think there has been one case ever. I don't know that it was a sea lion, though.
SPEAKER_02Some sort of pinniped.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Is my my memory of a conversation I had a really long time ago. Are they vaccinated against any vaccinations? I think they we do West Nile um vaccines annually at the aquarium, uh, for sure.
SPEAKER_02But they are, you know, they're out in the open if you've ever been to our habitat. It's outside, so mosquitoes can bite them. They get an itchy little mosquito bite, just like we do. And unfortunately, mosquitoes are vectors for disease. And so um, we do want to protect them against whatever might be introduced.
SPEAKER_00But they're there are plenty of them are trained to do voluntary um I am or intramuscular. Which is cool injections. I don't think they really noticed.
SPEAKER_01They just like my pot and my flippers being touched. And now it's over. And now it's done. The last question we got was drop the Parker lore, which I feel like this whole episode has been. But do you have any additional Parker lore to share?
SPEAKER_00My favorite story I've ever heard about Parker came from one of our volunteers who has actually been volunteering at the aquarium since before it opened. Um, we have some incredible volunteers who have been with us the whole time. And so they knew Parker when he came to the aquarium at like one or two years old. They knew baby Parker. And apparently young slash baby Parker was a little bit less of a steady good boy than he is right now. A little not and I've just heard stories about them like trying to train new things like a flipper stand where he stands up on his front flippers and it's very impressive. And then like asking it, I'm trying to remember if I'm telling this right. It involved him being asked a behavior on one of our rocks that we have on exhibit and just like being so excited about it, he just like flung himself off the rock, which is so hard to imagine for our like steady, sweet boy that he has matured in.
SPEAKER_02That he had energy to do to fling.
SPEAKER_00Just a little crazy.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's funny. He is just the absolute best animal that we have. Like, hands down, Kane is amazing, Chase is amazing, but Parker is all around a good boy, and that is so rare to find in like Harpo was an all-around good boy, too. Harpo was an all-around loud boy, also. What else has what else was Parker lore? I feel like there's so many things.
SPEAKER_01When how old was he when he arrived at the aquarium?
SPEAKER_02He's a year old. He was tiny. And if you see pictures of baby Parker, he looks like Parker, but you're like, whoa! Shrunk facial features are the same, with but then just add like a huge lump on his head, and that's him.
SPEAKER_01He still had that little mohawk, too.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, he had a little baby mohawk.
SPEAKER_00For anyone that isn't gonna be able to see Parker up close, his little mohawk is actually like coarser fur, and it does, it feels different than the rest of it, which makes it very fun to play with.
SPEAKER_02And when he's dry, just like three or four hairs stand up right at the front of the body.
SPEAKER_00I have some good pictures of when he's been woken up uh after he's decided it's time to go to bed, and he has literal bedhead.
SPEAKER_02He's like, oh you guys.
SPEAKER_00It's the cutest.
SPEAKER_02I want to think of one more story that might be Parker Lore. What else has he done in his lifetime?
SPEAKER_00Parker is a really sweet boy, but when people are in um his environment, he has uh his path that he chooses to travel, and so it is really funny when we dive in there with him. Um because Parker is not watching out for you. You swimming. You are watching out for Parker. He knows he knows his house, he knows um his environment, and so you do kind of spend the whole time just kind of looking around, making sure you're not in his path, um, because he's absolutely skimmed the top of my head as I've been like diving before.
SPEAKER_02Um, I know. Parker has the same routine every day because he is a boy that colors inside the lines. That's how I often hear him described as he loves to follow the rules and things that he knows exist. And so Parker, for example, wakes up every morning, spends about 10 to 20 minutes on the ledge scratching his neck, kind of behind the concrete pillar where you can't see him if you were a guest. And then he comes up on our steps and he rubs his face and sneezes all over the stairs rock for like 10 minutes, and then we have to clean all his sneezes off of his sneeze rock. And then he goes to do his sessions, and then around 4 p.m. he goes to bed.
SPEAKER_00And that's like everyone's an old man and he's figured out what works for him.
SPEAKER_02But we used to do our sessions at slightly different times than we do now. And you know, just the way programmatically we've changed things, Parker was so used to his routine that it took him months to adapt. To like, we'd be like, we've been feeding you at 9.15 every time, every day for like a year now. And he's like, It's 9.45 to probably come back for my actual breakfast.
SPEAKER_00And you're like, dude, daylight savings is rough.
SPEAKER_02He has no concept of it. He's like, that's not right.
SPEAKER_00My favorite is we've been pretty variable recently of where we enter our habitat because they we are very reinforcing to them. We bring all the fish, we bring, you know, fun, interesting moments they see us coming. So we've been entering from the other side of our exhibit a lot. And they all have um what we call stations where they begin their um sessions. That's how they know who they're working with. And Parker will just swim past his trainer because he's like, You entered from the wrong direction. I don't think we're doing this yet. And then he'll watch, like Kane and Chase will catch on a little bit quicker, and they're like, All right, we're starting. And Parker's like, Oh my god, you've been there the whole time.
SPEAKER_02He's like, How'd you get in here?
SPEAKER_00I didn't even see you guys come in. Which is why we do that. We want him to have those moments where things are a little shaken up for him. Um, but he he adjusts slower than the other boys for sure.
SPEAKER_02Ooh, the last one, and this is the one I was trying to think of, is that Parker hates herring. He doesn't hate hate herring, but it is his least favorite food type, and he has learned to tolerate it. Yeah, it's it's broccoli, it's Brussels sprouts, it's whatever. Uh, but especially if you cut herring in pieces for whatever reason it makes it infinitely grosser to him.
SPEAKER_00Or if it's in pieces and icy.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Oh, it's over. But there was a time where we were working with sort of like rut-ish Parker, like pre-rut Parker, and we were tossing him food. And he was on deck and he was doing a reasonable session, and someone had cut his herring in his bucket, and you know, us feeding him what he has, we've tossed him a piece of cut herring, and he turns his face to the side and lets it hit him in the cheek instead of catching it like he does with every other fish. It falls to the ground and it's not in a position and we haven't picked it up immediately. And whatever he was doing, he moved his flipper and he stepped on it, and he like so horrified, picked up his flipper, like kind of like shaking, and was staring at it, and he just like made a face. Like, I've never seen a sea lion just like make a face, but it was like obvious disgust. And you could see it's an 800-pound animal that had stepped on a little piece of fish that had smeared all along his flipper, and he just turned with his flipper up and hopped to the water so that it wouldn't touch the ground again and never came back for the rest of the session. He was like, that was so gross.
SPEAKER_00Similarly, we tried out um what we have called fish gel, which is just kind of an emergency supplement that we could have if for whatever reason we could not get access to fish, we want to make sure that we can take care of our animals. And so we tried the fish gel, and I was the one working Parker on the morning we tried the fish gel, and we all knew it was not gonna go for this. But he didn't notice the first couple I fed to him, and I was like, wow, like he likes it so good. Like this is awesome. So I like fed it, I like fed him some fish, fed another one, fed him some fish, went for the third one, and he figured out what was going on. Something's fishy here. Yeah, he spit it out, shook his head, and he not only didn't come back for that session, he didn't come back for the next two sessions.
SPEAKER_02He's like, This bay is ruined.
SPEAKER_00Similarly, it was close to rut, so he wasn't all that motivated by food anyway. Um, whereas Chase was in the corner just chowing down, eating all the stuff that Parker dropped. He was like, fish smells great.
SPEAKER_02You should always blend up fish into a goo for me.
SPEAKER_00I think Kane and Harpo did eat it, but not enthusiastically.
SPEAKER_02Harpo used to, we used to we're trying trout with him, and Harpo used to swallow the trout down and then wait till you weren't looking, or you like looked away, or he would walk away from you and he would like just spit it up in a corner. Kind of the way that dogs who like take a treat from you that they don't really want, they just put it in a corner and they come back. And so he would always pretend like he was eating it, but he would just disappear underwater and then he would come back and you would see a trout fly. And you're like, hey, bud, I know what you do.
SPEAKER_00It's very weird when you ate it that doesn't have a gag reflex, so they can just store fish in their throat sometimes. And you're like, that's gross.
SPEAKER_02That's gonna gross. That's our best lore.
SPEAKER_01This is great Parker lore. This is great sea lion lore in general. Great Erin lore.
unknownGreat.
SPEAKER_02Come to their pinniped exit. We will talk about our animals for farmers.
SPEAKER_00Probably a little bit longer than you anticipated. But you might not want it.
SPEAKER_01All have a great time, but we do, and we're happy to talk about it. That's amazing. Well, thank you, Erin, so much for being on the podcast today. You're welcome. You? No. You're always on the podcast. Thank you, Erin Bell. This was wonderful.
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