Week One - Introduction to Seward

Well, my first week has come to a close. I feel a little overwhelmed with the barrage of information I've experienced. This week has been all about orientation: orientation of Seward, intern orientation, stranding orientation. The first few days involved meeting with the other interns, meeting staff and learning about The Center (http://www.alaskasealife.org/). Another intern and I were able to walk through quarantine with my supervisor on Tuesday. Learned the first rule of stranding/rehab, once you enter the quarantine area you cannot enter the main building until after you have showered and changed your clothing. This is ensures no pathogens or viruses from the rehab animals come in contact with the center's animals. Thursday consisted of meeting the seasonal staff of stranding. Tim (my supervisor) was absent because he was responding to a call in Petersburg concerning a Steller Sea Lion who subsequently died prior to transport. All of us (4 interns) were showed quarantine and met the only animal we had at that time. His name is Gasket and he's a 2 week old Harbour Seal, born from a cesarean section on a fishing vessel in Valdez. His mom was being harvested, the boat crew noticed she was very much pregnant and a c-section was performed. He's very healthy and very vocal. We are concerned with him imprinting on humans because he has never seen another seal before and humans have been caring for him since birth. We then learned the second lesson of stranding, cleaning. Much of our time will be spent cleaning up after the animals and ourselves.

Time not spent cleaning is split between preparing food for the animals and feeding them. We learned how to prepare a milk formula and fish formula. That involved something I'm familiar with....blenders! It's like a fishy smoothie. Smells wonderful! :x When the food is made up it is time for feeding. For the pups right now we are tube feeding them every meal. That involves a tuber and a restrainer. We learned to restrain a seal pup. During this process we learned that seals are squirmy and if they just had a swim before their meal, they are very slippery! Weights and temperatures have to be taken as well and in order to do those things an animal must be restrained or physically picked up. We had to learn how to make a seal burrito... lol just a pup wrapped in a towel for transport and pick up. And that is pretty much the day for me.

In my down time I have managed to walk through town; down 4 th street which is the main drag and to the harbour. I've been on a few runs. I took a pretty memorable one the other night. I decided to jog the road that runs south along the bay towards the tidal flats. It had cleared up after two days of rain, but (for some reason) I didn't predict the dirt road to be so muddy. I proceeded on my run with my pants and shoes caking themselves with a mud that I can only describe as shale clay. I hadn't quite reached Lowell Point when I decided to turn around. I saw a moving silhouette in the water and as I drew closer to it I recognized it as a sea otter, even though I have never seen one in the wild. Indeed it was a sea otter and I sat on the nearest sturdy rock to observe him. He was foraging in the shallows. I gave him lots of distance so I could observe without disturbing him. It was because of this I couldn't see him all that well but I definitely could hear him munching on some sort of crunchy morsel. This in fact made my day, it made the rinsing and washing of my extremely dirty pants and shoes worth while.