apples to oranges: Whistle While You Work

Finally! Pictures of where I work and what I do. I'll start with the manatees. We have two of them, Lou and Jasper, and they definitely have distinct personalities. You start to understand their behaviors and recognize their moods when you have to stand on the manatee stage and answer questions for a few hours a day (we have to mark down how much they eat). I also give informative speeches about these two guys and West Indian Manatees in general at various times.

Fun facts about manatees:

Disney is a rehabilitation center, so all of our manatees are rescued and re-released.

The average weight of a manatee is between 1500 and 1800 pounds.

Lou is 15 and weighs 1404 pounds (he was weighed yesterday so that number is freshly updated), Lou is also missing almost all of his tail paddle because a boat hit him.

Jasper is 4 years old and weighs 604 pounds and he is with us because he got manatee "hypothermia" over one of Florida's unnaturally cold winters.

Their closest living relative is the elephant.

Each of them eats between 60 and 100 pounds of lettuce per day (that I get to clean) - Herbivores!

My man Jasper having a lettuce snack

These guys are in a separate tank. I SCUBA dive in the mornings and vacuum up their poop. I know, glamorous. The main environment is made up of 5.7 million gallons of man made salt water and houses close to 2000 individuals, including rays, sea turtles (2 greens and 1 loggerhead), sharks, fish, and dolphins. We dive in this tank too. We did one dive just for fun to explore the environment and I've also scrubbed algae away from the man made coral reefs. Watch out for the sand tiger shark. He has an intimidating set of protruding teeth.

As far as the dolphins go, I participate in research training sessions, make their food buckets, clean their toys, and assist in dolphin presentations for the public. At a later date I will be narrating the dolphin presentations. We have 4 guys: Ranier - early thirties, Khyber - eighteen, Calvin - sixteen, and Malabar - ten. They are all very playful and give you the side-eye when you go up to the dolphin quad (where we go to feed them) on the top floor and don't offer them anything. They are part of the main environment but separated from the other animals with a fence. The spaces in the fence are large enough for the other animals to pass through yet they don't. Dolphins tend to "play" with other fish - including sharks, and the other fish don't usually survive. I've seen this happen when a fish wandered a little too far over.

Rainier on the left and Khyber on the right

This is a view of what the public gets to see of the main environment. There is an upper floor, but only employees are allowed up there and I'm not supposed to take any pictures. It's cool though, you can take my word for it.

Diving in the main environment: this was such a cheese-fest. I was trying to clean the windows in the dolphin area and I was posing with people's babies.