Swim with the Fishes

There are things you don’t get to say every day. “I got bit by a penguin” is definitely one of them. But since I spent one sunny spring day being a Trainer for a Day at the Mystic Aquarium, going behind the scenes in some of their most popular exhibits and getting face time with some amazing sea creatures, I’ve been saying it to anyone who will listen. I’ve been bitten by a penguin, and I’ve lived to tell the tale.

Okay, so maybe it wasn’t a bite. Maybe it was more of an inquisitive love nibble, the penguin asking “who’s this new person in my home?” Regardless, it happened, and it’s a good story. But I left Mystic that day with a lot of good stories. Though, I’m getting a bit ahead of myself. Let’s start at the beginning.

Mystic Aquarium is unique for a lot of reasons: their abundance of events and unique programming, like the after-hours Cocktails with the Whales, a twice-monthly catered cocktail party outside the beluga habitat complete with “Belugatinis”; their outreach to the community (recently they crowdsourced the name for a rescued harbor seal they took in after marine biologists decided Coral needed an aquarium’s protection to survive); their partnership with Dr. Robert Ballard, who discovered the sunken RHMS Titanic, to create an insanely cool Titanic - 12,450 Feet Below experience. Just the whole layout of the aquarium is different – half inside, with tanks of jellies and seahorses, and half outside, so you can get so close to the sea lions and belugas that you can feel the spray from their blowholes. (That happened to me, too. Right in the face. Don’t worry – I’m pretty sure you can’t catch anything just from reading a story I wrote.)

If you can’t tell, I really love the place. I have a thing for sea life in general. My non-negotiable when traveling is that if I’m going to a place with an aquarium, I’m going to it and that’s that. I’ve seen an albino alligator in North Carolina, pet a bamboo shark in California, stood a leetle too close to a piranha tank in Baltimore, made faces at a walrus in Quebec City, quoted Finding Nemo at a centenarian sea turtle in Tennessee, made friends with a starfish in the Bahamas. One thing I hadn’t done, though, is get up close and personal with a penguin, and it had long been on my bucket list. I knew Mystic did encounter programs with penguins and whales where you get to get a bit closer than your average visitor, but I had no idea they did an immersive, all-day trainer program. I signed up immediately.

Amanda Wheeler, a bubbly brunette with a lot of energy and passion for sea life,met me bright and early on a Friday morning at the aquarium’s front gate. As my guide for the day, Amanda would be giving me the tour of the facility, and introducing me to the various trainers I’d be shadowing. After her introduction, we headed to the penguin habitat, just in time for feeding time.

Behind the scenes in the penguin house, Josh, my trainer, introduced me to Purple Red and Purple Gray. (Penguins at the aquarium are identified by combinations of colored beads on bands around their wing. Unlike whales and sea lions, they look too similar to have unique names.) The tiny penguin chicks were too little to be out with the general population, and were still getting used to being around people, standard feeding procedures, even being in the water. Josh showed me where they nest, which was littered with little stuffed animals, including a penguin. Then he walked me through the feeding procedure: I would sit next to him in the habitat, holding my hand out in a V to simulate a beak, and feed the birds their fill of whole capelin, a smallish silver fish.

It turns out, feeding penguins isn’t that easy. They can be food aggressive, trying to take the fish from your hand too quickly, and they can’t eat anything that has fallen on the ground. (There’s penguin poop there. Would you eat something that touched penguin poop?) My first couple of attempts were misfires. The bird pulled one way, I pushed the other, and all of a sudden the fish was on the ground and out of commission. Come to think of it, maybe that’s why I got that little nip on the ankle. Was Blue Blue just trying to tell me to get it right already?

Penguins also prize relationships, both with each other (they mate for life) and with their trainers, which is why I wasn’t allowed to pet them. It takes a long time for a penguin to trust a person. If I reached out to pet one, I’d get a real bite, not what Amanda explained was just a curiosity nibble on my ankle as I walked through the waddle of them. I was a new element in the penguin environment, and he was just wondering what I was. “He was checking you out,” she said. While it did leave a little mark, it didn’t hurt at all. (Though I’ve subsequently played up the drama of the experience for comedic effect.)

While I viewed getting to be so close to them as a privilege, Amanda explained that I was actually good for the penguins, too. One thing that’s really important to the animals’ well-being is enrichment: being exposed to new sights and sounds, things outside of their daily grind of swimming and eating fish. Trainers give them toys, blow sea-safe bubbles into their habitat, bring them to see different fish tanks in the morning before the aquarium opens to the public. As an outsider, someone whom they don’t see every day, I counted as enrichment to the penguins. Clearly my selflessness was paramount here. I mean really, it’s all about giving back. Never mind the fact that I was squealing with delight, even as I peeled fish scales off of my hands.

Next up was the lizard house, where Amanda showed me a frilled lizard she has been
training. (Those are the ones that look just like the spitting dinosaurs from Jurassic Park... extremely comforting.) He was a great example of how animals are trained: she works with him every day, using positive reinforcement and behavioral cues to elicit the desired response. In this case, that was getting him to display his frill on command. Then, it was onto the sea lion show. The aquarium houses six California sea lions, all of whom are trained to perform speed swimming, vocal cues, jumps and shape recognition. It’s as fun for them to do as it is for us to watch – and the fish they get as food rewards don’t hurt, either.

Normally, Amanda explained, we would go behind the scenes in the sea lion habitat as the third part of the trainer program. But, because it was the first day of the season (and I was their first test subject of the year), we were going to skip it for now. Fine with me.I had a date with a whale, and I had been looking forward to it forever.

If we’re being honest, I’m surprised that Amanda and I didn’t have more of an issue with the fact that we’re both totally crazy about Juno. She spends as much time as she can working with the youngest beluga, and the silver pendant that hangs her neck is an imprint of his tail. She had it specially made in Florida. For me, it was love at first sight. Juno swam up to me as I walked into the enclosure, inquisitive and curious. I leaned over, putting my face as close as I could to his, when all of a sudden, blam. He blew water and air out of his blowhole, spraying it all over my face. Then he did it again. I couldn’t even be upset. It was like Juno was saying, “Hello. You are my new best friend. Let’s play.”

It was almost feeding time for the whales, and there was still some preparation that needed to be done, so Amanda led me into the food prep area of the beluga enclosure. Belugas eat 60-70 pounds of fish every day, so really, there’s always some food prep that needs to be done. I dug my hands into the 27 pounds of capelin and squid that needed to be cleaned and inspected for Naku, a 30-year-old female whale.

They tried to sell me on this being a privilege, but when you’re spreading apart a raw squid’s tentacles to check for any suspect marks, it doesn’t really feel that way. It’s kind of like how little kids are “such good helpers” for playing the cleaning the house game. Later, when the trainers were using that fish to reward the whales for doing cool tricks, the unpleasantness was totally erased.

After washing my hands very, very well, Amanda introduced me to my trainer, Kathryn. She and I would be feeding and playing with ten-year-old Juno. (You remember, my new best friend.) As he swam over, his youth was evident. He just seemed so energetic and playful. I swear Juno was smiling when he came over to us. Kathryn explained that because belugas are tactile animals, touch is a reward for good behavior and a way to bond with them. They love being pet and being tapped on their domes, but the ultimate way to bond with a beluga is to lovingly slap it on the tongue. “Really? You want me to stick my hand in a whale’s mouth?” I asked. “Do it,” Kathryn said. “He loves it. You’ll be fine.” So I did, and he did, and our friendship was solidified.

In the same way that I was enrichment for the penguins, I was training for the belugas. A lot of the behaviors that the trainers teach the whales has to do with animal husbandry. When Juno was floating on his back and I was petting his smooth underbelly, I was teaching him that he can trust a stranger to do that and not be scared of it. That way, when he needs care from a vet, the sensation won’t be unfamiliar.

Then, the fun stuff. Juno has several visual cues that result in him making on-command noises and gestures. Tapping by his blowhole results in him making a raspberry noise with it. Swipe under his chin and he makes a pterodactyl noise. Gesture as though you’re pulling on a rope and he’ll sound a foghorn. Pull your earlobe and he’ll whistle. Every so often Juno would swim away to do a quick lap, but was always back for more petting and more fish. After, we broke out the toys. A long stick with a ball on the end shows Juno how high he should be trying to reach out of the water. A Frisbee is a target for him to spit seawater at. Kathryn didn’t tell me that one until after it was too late. We were all laughing. “Sorry,” she said. “He never used to be that good at spitting.”

After more petting, more clapping, more feeding fish to a very friendly whale, it was time to go. As we walked out, Amanda explained to me what drives her passion for sea creatures. Though she’s an employee now, she volunteered for a year and a half before being hired. “I would drive two hours each way just to be with the penguins,” she said. “Every single person who works here is here for these animals.”

“I want to educate people who have no idea why the trainers are here,” Amanda continued. Her passion was evident as she spoke. “We’re training them so we can take better care of them. Every animal here is an ambassador for their counterparts out in the ocean. We ask Juno to do these sounds because they’re fun, but also so we know how many vocal cues he’s capable of.”

“Plus,” she said, “you get to meet an endangered species. We want the public to know about them and care about them so we can save them in the long run.” Trainer for a Day programs run Tuesday and Friday during the warm weather, and are limited to two people daily.