Weekly Update 31

Hello Everyone!

The exciting news this week is that I was able to feed sea lions two more times! I fed Diamond again, she is probably my favorite and I always like to say that she could be in a film because she is such a pretty sea lion. I also fed Kilo – the big 580 lb. male! He is the biggest and heaviest animal on the property but is also one of the gentlest. He is fun to feed because he is literally like a gentle vacuum. He sucks all of the fish right out of your hand, sometimes an entire handful of capelins at a time. He is really cool in how smart he is, he was born at Sea World Orlando and was actually going to work with the U.S Navy but then it was found that he was prone to stress and was brought to DRC. The head trainer, Loriel has worked with him since he was young and it is always fun to watch their sessions together. He responds so well to her and you can see how excited he gets when they work together – he knows over 100 different behaviors and they are all verbal cues. He is so impressive.

We had a photo shoot this week which was a lot of fun. We were given the opportunity to get in with the girls in the front lagoon and just have fun with them and play around with personal photographers nearby. We then did floaty boats and surf boards with them afterwards and it is probably one of my favorite things to do with the girls, because it is literally just playing with them with no fish at all. We were just paddling around on surf boards and they would try to race us or offer their dorsal fins to hold on to. Windley was the best because she would start nice and sweet, then pick up speed and abruptly turn and see if she could knock you off of your board. She seemed to really enjoy it because she did it over and over again. If you have ever wondered if dolphins would interact with people without fish, I am her to tell you that they do!