What’s it like to Dive at an Aquarium?

Scuba diving is a vital part of working with marine life, becoming a diver at an aquarium is a good step towards earning more experience in the field! Answering some questions about working as a diver for an aquarium is Shelby and our friend Jesse. Jesse is one of my coworkers at the Sea Life aquarium & Shelby is one of the divers for the North Carolina aquarium at Fort Fisher!

 

• Describe a day in this job.

Jesse:

Arrive at work and check up on coworkers, prep gear because safety is paramount and then dive with all our amazing animals at Sea Life! All while educating our guests with our education team. Between dives the dive team relaxes and bonds. We finish the day with equipment cleaning, showers, and mopping the ocean overlook.

Shelby:

My days are pretty brief because it’s only one dive. I go in and set all my gear up, change into a wet suit, and hop in the water. I usually do some cleaning and try to have some cute guest interactions at the windows- giving high fives and playing games, and then I try and move all the sand around back to where it should be and clean the algae off the walls where it builds up. After 30 minutes the show diver will finish up, we surface, rinse and put away our gear, shower, and head home!

• What qualifications did you need?

Jesse:

Rescue diver certification, knowledge of marine life, and prowess of scuba diving

Shelby:

For my  aquarium they only required an Open Water certification and a swim test!

• What’s the most challenging part of the job?

Jesse:

Trying to find new ways to convey information to guests in an interesting and entertaining way

Shelby:

Being cautious of the animals. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve accidentally kicked a fish!

• What made you want to pursue this position?

Jesse:

My goal is to become a marine biologist and I felt this position would provide good diving experience. Also the slight raise to help ease the burden of my student loan debt. 🙂

Shelby:

It’s a great platform to use as an educator. Divers are interesting people and the public is most likely to listen to me if I’m in the water than if I’m on dry land.

• Has this position changed how you view the animals in the aquarium or animals in general?

Jesse:

I feel a lot closer to many of the animals in our aquarium.

Shelby:

Not really but that’s only because I had worked as an educator prior and sort of knew my way around the field already.

• What characteristics should someone have to be successful in this role?

Jesse:

A love for diving, the want to always improve, and the curiosity to continue learning

Shelby:

I think to do anything in the animal field you have to be passionate to a point of not being able to envision yourself doing anything else at all. The field is so competitive that you need to be versatile and willing to learn and constantly improve.

• Where do you want this job to take you in the future?

Jesse:

Hopefully through connections and experience, some job that is more hands on with wildlife and diving. Maybe something doing surveys? Hopefully something ecological overall!

Shelby:

Diving is good for experience for any marine related field but for me specifically, I’d like to do research diving and coral restoration work.

• Do you have any funny or embarrassing stories you’re ok with sharing?

Jesse:

I’ve been scared by our dog faced puffer fish on multiple occasions. I’m just floating there, super calm then I turn my head to the right and he’s literally inches from my mask. Just floating out of my vision!

Shelby:

One of my first dives I used fins that were too big and they fell off during my dive. I sat down on the bottom and the entire show crowd watched as my buddy put my fins back my feet for me.

 

Thanks again for reading, and as always, if you have any questions don’t be afraid to ask!

-Jenney

How She Works: “Freezing Bees to Help Them” from Mashable Deals

“Entomologist Hollis Woodard studies bees in order to save them.”

It’s very common to see the phrase “save the bees” on t-shirts, mugs, and other items sold in stores across the nation, but what work goes into actually saving the bees? This video shows you how an entomologist specializing in bumble bees works and what their passion is: bees!

-Jenney

“Aquarist For A Day” From Jonathan Bird’s Blue World

The underwater version of a zoo keeper is of course an aquarist. The role of aquarist is a highly coveted position, but is often fantasized to be just a job that entails cuddling sharks all day. Jobs in the animal all around deal with a lot of hard work, like mopping and cleaning up feces. This video from Jonathan Bird does a great job of highlighting the amazing and some times not so amazing parts of these jobs.

I also highly recommend watching videos from this YouTube channel because you’re able to learn so much about the underwater world – from topics on diving to shark biology, there’s a lot to discover!

-Jenney

Intern at a National Park this Summer

If you are more interested in field work and research work, interning for a national park is a great idea to look into! You can find internships with the parks through many different sites, but I recommend visiting the Environment for the Americas site to search for internship opportunities in different national parks. Most, if not all, of the internships posted offer interns a weekly stipend (that’s higher than 98% of internships I’ve seen), as well as housing.

Many internships for the summer have deadlines of March 1st, or a different deadline in the middle of February, so act fast. 🙂

-Jenney

Where to Look for Jobs/Internships

It’s that time of year again where there are tons and tons of open opportunities for summer internships and new jobs! Finding a job as a zoo keeper or field researcher isn’t as easy as looking it up on Indeed, but lucky for us there are other sites to help us find these opportunities! Below are my two favorite sites to find open job listings/internships.

• AZA.org

This is one of my favorite sites to visit! Recently there have been a surplus in the posts on the site for both internships and jobs as well! If you’re wanting a position working hands on with animals or working as a zoo keeper, this is the site to use. However, if you’re in the market for a paid internship, it might be more difficult to find on this site.

• ConservationJobBoard.com

This is also a great site to use to find both internships and job postings! The postings are not as frequent, but are often higher level positions instead. This is definitely a great site to use to find paid internship opportunities and more conservation based work.

You will find majorly listings from the United States on both of these sites, but there are also the occasional international listings as well.

If you are still new to the field and want to find out what different jobs pertain, I really recommend opening these sites and just looking through the listings, reading the descriptions to different jobs in your free time. This can help you familiarize yourself with what different careers in ecology and wildlife do, and even provide you with a good framework of what to work on by using the requirements from different postings.

If you’re in the same boat as me and looking for a summer internship, be quick! Most deadlines are by the end of January, or February.

Happy applying!

-Jenney

How She Works: “When Your Job is Saving the Ocean” from Mashable

“Take a dive with Ariadne Reynolds, a marine biologist restoring the underwater ecosystem in Santa Monica Bay.”

The ocean provides us essentially endless opportunities to explore and learn, it’s only natural many of us want to help conserve its resources. Check out this video to learn more on how this marine biologist is doing her part to help the ocean and hopefully learn a little on how you could do the same.

-Jenney

Animal Volunteer Sites (Florida based)

Volunteering is one of the key ways to gain experience in the field and explore your passion for wildlife! Below you’ll find a list of different sites, sorted by geographic location, where you’re able to volunteer with animals, with links taking you directly to the volunteer page.

Central Florida:

• Central Florida Zoo (Sanford)
• Avian Reconditioning Center (Apopka)
• Back to Nature Wildlife Refuge (Orlando)
• Second Chance Wildlife Refuge (Orlando)
• Central Florida Animal Reserve (St Cloud)
• In Harmony with Nature Animal Haven (Orlando)
• Audubon Center for Birds of Prey (Maitland)
• Center for Great Apes (Wauchula)
• LEASH (TNR of Lake County) (Lake County)
• Humane Society of Lake County (Umatilla)
• Pet Alliance of Greater Orlando (Multiple Locations)

West Florida area:

• Florida Aquarium (Tampa)
  • You can be a volunteer diver here!
• Lowry Zoo (Tampa)
  • You can be a volunteer diver here, but it is not openly advertised on their site (send an email with questions!)
• Odessa Wildlife Rescue and Sanctuary (Odessa)
• Big Cat Habitat & Gulf Coast Sanctuary (Sarasota)
• Mote Marine Laboratory & Aquarium (Sarasota)
• Clearwater Marine Aquarium (Clearwater)
  • You can be a volunteer diver here!
• Human Society of Pasco County (Spring Hill)

East Florida area:

• Brevard Zoo (Melbourne)
• Marine Science Center (Ponce Inlet)
• NSB Turtle Trackers (New Smyrna Beach)
• Halifax Human Society (Daytona Beach)
• SPCA of Volusia County
• Wild Florida Rescue (Brevard County)
• HALO Animal Rescue (Indian River County)

North Florida:

• Jacksonville Zoo (Jacksonville)
• Seacrest Wolf Preserve (Chipley)
• Gainesville Rabbit Rescue (Gainesville)
• Catty Shack Ranch (Jacksonville)
• Wildlife Rescue Coalition of NE Florida (Jacksonville)
• BEAKS (Jacksonville)
• Ziggy’s Haven Bird Sanctuary (Iverness)
• Bear Creek Feline Center (Panama City)
• Wildlife Sanctuary of Northwest Florida (Pensacola)
• Rooterville Sanctuary (Melrose)
• Ayla’s Acres No-Kill Animal Rescue (St Augustine)

South Florida:

• Zoo Miami (Miami)
• Wildlife Rescue of Dade County (Miami)
• Shy Wolf Sanctuary (Naples)
• Busch Wildlife Sanctuary (Jupiter)
• Clinic for the Rehabilitation of Wildlife (Sanibel)
• Coral Restoration Foundation (Key Largo)
  • You can be a volunteer diver here!
• National Key Deer Refuge (Big Pine Key)
• Dolphin Research Center (Grassy Key)
• Loggerhead Marinelife Center (Juno Beach)
• McCarthy’s Wildlife Sanctuary (West Palm Beach)
• South Florida Wildlife Center (Fort Lauderdale)
• Big Dog Ranch Rescue (Loxahatchee)
• Florida Keys Wild Bird Sanctuary (Tavernier)
• Naples Zoo (Naples)
• Bird Gardens of Naples (Naples)
• Conservancy of Southwest Florida (Naples)

Keep in mind this is no where near a complete list of every single location in the state of Florida, but we are always adding to this page when we do find a new place! If you live in a city other than the ones mentioned above, it’s not difficult to google your current city followed by “animal rehab/rescue.”

My personal recommendation is to volunteer with smaller nonprofit organizations because they are usually groups that need help the most, but any experience is good experience regardless. Even volunteering with animal shelters, working with dogs and cats, is great experience too! Everyone has to start somewhere.

Shelby has volunteered with the Central Florida Animal Reserve and I’ve volunteered with the Audubon Center for Birds of Prey and In Harmony with Nature, so if you have any questions about either of these locations, let us know!

-Jenney

Animal Wonders: How To Get A Career Working With Animals

Hi readers! We haven’t posted much in the past month because both Shelby & I are neck deep in studying for finals! We have a lot of things in the works though! In the mean time, check out this awesome video from one of my favorite Youtube channels, Animal Wonders, on how to get a career in the animal field!

Thanks & as always, reach out if you have any questions!

-Jenney

Spooky Environmentalism!

Happy Halloween!

Have fun on this holiday, but as always, think about how our actions affect the environment! You can help make environment friendly choices this Halloween by choosing sustainable candy choices! Here are info guides provided by the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo and the Loggerhead Marinelife Center. (Click to enlarge!)

 

Sustainability means the avoidance of the depletion of natural resources in order to maintain an ecological balance. This sounds like a broad definition but put in perspective it can mean buying seafood or meat from sources that aren’t depleting endangered species or being harvested in a way that will harm the environment (for example: bottom trawling is often a harmful method of fishing). Applied to Halloween candy, this means choosing candies that use palm oil in a responsible way.

Palm oil is in just about everything we use, however, there are sustainable and non-sustainable ways to harvest it for our everyday use. When palm oil is harvested in a non-sustainable way, it causes deforestation, habitat loss, increase in CO2 release, and much more. Halloween candies tend to be a really big culprit for using non-sustainable palm oil in their products, so shop responsibly! 🙂

This can always seem like a lot to remember but no need to worry! There’s an app for that. (Both apps are available on android & apple devices)

• Sustainable Palm Oil Shopping app from the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo
• Seafood Watch app from the Monterrey Bay Aquarium 

Otherwise, happy Halloween! Enjoy these pictures of mine & Shelby’s aquarium’s having some festive fun during our dives!

 

 

-Jenney

Changing How We View Wildlife on Social Media

Most of us have more than likely seen a viral video on social media that was along the lines of “Man befriends wild bear/big cat/other wild animal!” and many coo and say “Aww the animal loves them,” because we’re humans and love to personify organisms and imagine them in a more human-like light. However “befriending” wildlife can actually be devastating to the animal involved in this interaction.

In the animal care world, we call this habituating, or desensitizing an animal to humans.

Let’s take a step back and put this in context. In nature, two things that are very important to an animal are eating and not being eaten. In the animal’s mind set, situations & objects involved with eating are positively associated, and negatively associated with almost being eaten (or being harmed.) So obviously animals will avoid predators to avoid being eaten.

Usually, animals will see humans as predators. We are larger than many animals and make tons of loud noises. We also don’t occur naturally in most environments, so most wildlife isn’t used to us being around and will want to avoid us. But this natural relationship is often disrupted by us.

For example, animals like sting rays and sharks will often avoid scuba divers because they see divers as an unfamiliar organism and potential predator, so they will often swim away. When sharks do swim near scuba divers it is often in an area where scuba diving is a common activity, so the sharks in the area might have grown accustomed to divers in the water and have learned that we mean them no harm. In some situations, this is taken a step further and the sharks will come right up to divers because in the past many other divers have fed them, so now the sharks have a positive association with scuba divers and have been completely desensitized to people.I’m sure that you can see where this can go wrong. A kid falls off a boat in the same waters. The sharks see a person and think it’s time to be fed and the kid gets bitten. The people are up in arms and kill the shark. This continues until the shark population is greatly hindered and it becomes a modern day Jaws. This entire situation could be avoided if the divers never started feeding the sharks and habituating them to humans.

This can be applied to several other situations as well. The gator that ate some one’s pet because someone who lives on the lake fed them over years. The sand hill cranes that peck people because they’ve been fed by your neighbor (it’s actually illegal to feed sandhill cranes in Florida). So forth.

 

Even feeding seemingly innocent animals, like deer, or larger birds, like ravens or crows, can be detrimental to the health and safety of the animal. If you feel like you’re just helping the animal at that moment, it really isn’t in the long run.

 

Habituation goes hand in hand with another term–anthropomorphizing. Anthropomorphism is the practice in humanizing non-human animals–or assigning human emotions and characteristics to animals that do not share them. In simple terms, thinking of an animal doing some thing in people terms. Those viral videos you see of animals “thanking” humans for rescuing them? Anthropomorphism.

Example of anthropomorphism & false information!

Animals do not feel emotions like humans do–your pet is not jealous, angry, depressed, or any other complex feeling that humans feel. Most animals are either stressed or they are not stressed.  Your perception of sadness or anger is the equivalent of an animal displaying a stress response to whatever the stressor may be. What you see as happiness or excitement is just contentment–lack of stress, or a feeling of safety. While some animals MAY experience “emotions” more complex than this, like elephants mourning their dead, we do not know for sure for most animals. For example, wolves are highly intelligent, able to work in teams, but this photo that is commonly spread around social media is completely false. Assigning human feelings to animals is not a safe practice and can lead to many, MANY misconceptions and misunderstandings in the animal care community.

And as you can guess, these factors do not add up well in an animal’s life. We’ve provided a few links to situations involving habituated animals and as you can see, they don’t end well for the animal. Usually in these situations, the animal will either be euthanized or kept in captivity for the remainder of its life in rare cases. Even with anthropomorphizing, this spreads false information and misconceptions about animals.

Regardless, the first step in resolving these issues is becoming informed.

We’ve barely scratched the surface of animal behaviorism–especially in non domesticated animals. But we’re always happy to talk about it.

Thank you again for reading & choosing to learn a little more about animals!

-Jenney & Shelby