SEALS AROUND YOU

In this issue:

The Riverhead Foundation's Marine Mammal and Sea Turtle Rescue Center

What is a stranding?

Rescue Center HOTLINE

Meet Rob and Kim

Let's tour the Rescue Center!

Hi there again!

I hope you have enjoyed reading the first two newsletters - thank you for your interest!

Today I am going to tell you a little bit about the place where they rehabilitate marine mammals and sea turtles. It is called The Riverhead Foundation's Marine Mammal and Sea Turtle Rescue Center, and it is located in Riverhead - a very nice town at the east of Long Island. I am sure most of you who live in Long Island have heard about Atlantis Marine World - a brand new Aquarium with many interesting exhibits and sea lion shows. The Aquarium is home to the Rescue Center, and you can actually see some animals that are being rehabilitated through a window once you are inside the Aquarium.

I am sure you would like to know how the sick animals get to the Center, and you will be surprised when I tell you that it is mostly people like you who make it possible! There are many beaches around the surrounding shorelines of Long Island and the Rescue Center staff and volunteers try to survey them all for stranded animals as often as possible. Are you familiar with the term STRANDED and STRANDING? It refers to animals that for some reason beached themselves on the shore or in very shallow waters. It can be a single animal, or many animals (even up to 600 individuals or more) that come ashore at the same time - then we call it a MASS STRANDING. Scientist still don't know exactly why dolphins, whales, seals and other marine creatures strand themselves. Some possible explanations they came up with include bad weather conditions, sophisticated shape of the shoreline, muddy sediments at the stranding site, and also - bad health conditions of the animals themselves. If you are interested in learning more about the stranding phenomena, don't hesitate to email me (julikawocial@hotmail.com) and I will try to answer all of your questions!

Usually people that take a walk on the beach spot a stranded animal and call the Rescue Center or other authorities. It is always the Riverhead Foundation's Marine Mammal and Sea Turtle Rescue Center though that responds to every stranding that occurred in the New York state. The Rescue Center has helped many seals and other marine mammals as well as sea turtles in the past, thanks to all the people that reported stranded animals to the Center. Now you understand why YOU can help, too!

The Rescue Center's staff and volunteers are on duty 24 hours a day, ready for action in somebody reports a stranded animal. The sooner they respond, the more chances there are for the animals to be successfully rehabilitated and released back to the ocean. It is good to know that number and have it with you when you take a Sunday walk at your favorite beach - so write it down and put it in the pocket of your jacket!

When responding to a stranding in the fall and wintertime - often in extreme weather conditions - survival suits are used to protect people from low temperature and cold wind.

Now it is time for you to meet some people that run the Rescue Center - if you have already been to the Atlantis Marine World, I am sure these faces look familiar to you!

Rob DiGiovanni - Senior Biologist at the Center.

Kimberly Durham - Stranding Director at the Center

Besides Rob and Kim, there are 6 other people that work at the Center as regular staff members: Christopher Buchman (Education Coordinator), Kelly Cantara (Biologist and Volunteer Coordinator), Donna Hollner (Biologist and Educator), Jennifer Parizo (Biologist and Office Manager), Debrah Spangler-Martin (Biologist and Intern Coordinator) and Vinny Trama (Educator). As you can see, the staff itself is not very numerous and couldn't do much without volunteers - again, people like YOU! At present time, there are around 80 active volunteers from all over Long Island that put their effort in helping animals at the Rescue Center.

There are periods of time throughout the year when the Center doesn't have many sick animals to take care of, but sometimes all the rehabilitation tanks are full, and the caregivers work 24 hours a day. This happens in Spring (March - April), when the Center gets 80% of all the seals that come there during the whole year. Also in the Summer and early Fall (June - October) many sea turtles end up being transported to the Center, where they are being rehabilitated and then released the following Summer when the ocean water is warmer.

Besides seals and sea turtles, the Rescue Center also handled some sick cetaceans (whales, dolphins and porpoises) in the past. The most interesting cases include a young Sperm Whale that survived only a few days and unfortunately had to be put down in October 1999, a baby (less than one year old) Humpback Whale that was hauled into the deeper water by the Rescue Center, but washed up a few days later (March, 2000), and a harbor porpoise that was rehabilitated in the Center from May until June 22, 1999, and then transported to Mystic Aquarium.

And now let's take a little tour around the Rescue Center and see how it looks from the inside...

Only the Rescue Center staff, volunteers and special guests can cross this gate. All the other visitors use the regular entrance of the Aquarium from where they can see some of the rehabilitated animals through a glass wall.

Once you enter the building where the sick animals are being kept, you have to step into a bucket with a disinfecting solution. This procedure helps to prevent the germs from spreading around the building.

Right behind the main building of the Aquarium there is a huge cetacean tank, where all the whales, dolphins and porpoises are rehabilitated once they get into the Center. This tank can fit 30,000 lb of water and is 30 feet wide in diameter!

To the left of the cetacean tank, also behind the main building, the Rescue Center is building a new room where they will perform post mortem examinations of all the animals that died in the Center or that were found dead on the beach.

In the biggest room of the rehabilitation building you can see the cages in which animals are transported from the beach and then back to the site where they are being released...

... and the rehabilitation tanks where the sick animals live while they are treated in the Rescue Center. Each animal has its own tank, and soon each pool will have its own water system.

Once an animal arrives to the Rescue Center, it is being weighed, measured and carefully examined in this treatment room. Then it is treated with medications before it is brought to its tank for further rehabilitation.

Sometimes it is not very easy to figure out why an animal is sick, and what kind of medication it should have. That's why the Rescue Center staff needs to have a laboratory equipped with microscopes and other necessary items. 

And here are some of the animals that are being rehabilitated in the Rescue Center: a little Green sea turtle...

... and a gray seal popping its head out of the water, curious what's happening around its tank.

It is sometimes very hard to capture and handle even a little seal, but using this kind of net makes it a lot easier!

You are probably wondering what it is... It looks strange, doesn't it? Well, it is a Plexiglas tube filled with little blue balls that act like a filter. The water runs through this tube before it is pumped into the tank.

I guess this is the end of the tour for now, I hope you enjoyed it, and again -- if you have any questions, or if there is anything that you would like to know about the Center that I didn't mention here, don't hesitate to email me at julikawocial@hotmail.com

Thank you and til' next time!