Mystic Aquarium

Good morning!

We decided officially to go to Robben Island on Thursday, so today I have just come in to SANCCOB to help with the normal care and cleaning. There were a lot of vollies today. At SANCCOB some vollies are sent out for community outreach projects. Some of the volunteers went to do beach cleanups, some went to a horse rehab farm to help with cleaning and care, and some went to work at a dog kennel helping build new shelters for the dogs. It's great to see them all get involved in the community and what a great way for SANCCOB to use the resources!

Mostly throughout the day I have been helping Nola prepare the facility for her departure. We have been stocking up on things, making up vitamin solutions, doing charts and leaving instructions for when she is gone. Marlei is the manager, and she will taking over Nola's duties, but Marlei is fairly new here and Nola wants to make sure everything is covered.

Greetings again from beautiful South Africa!

Nola had me come into SANCCOB today. Since yesterday was a holiday, they needed to take blood and weights on all the birds today. We took blood from every last penguin, gull, pettrel and gannet they have here at SANCCOB. Nola had me restrain for her and I got to see how they take blood from the ankle (since I haven't seen that before). I learned how to restrain all of the flighted birds, and let me tell you – if you ever have to restrain a cape gannet, they are quite difficult! After we finished taking all of the blood samples, Nola relied on me to run all the tests. I have become quite a pro at reading all of the PCVs and protein levels (it's really not that hard, it just sounds impressive!) All of that pretty much took all morning, so then for the afternoon I have just been entering all of the lab results for all of the island samples we took.

It's a government holiday here in South Africa, so no one was working today. Nola decided it would be a good day to have some quiet time to do some necropsies. So of course I asked if I could help out. At first, I was wondering what they did at SANCCOB, about the care of the animals since no one is working. But once I got there, I saw that the whole center is just run by the vollies! Could you imagine if all the husbandry and vet staff left MAIFE for the day and just had the volunteers come in and do all the cleaning, feeding, record-keeping and medicine? Wow! But they did it, and all the birds received everything they needed! Yay for volunteers!

Greetings! Here is the latest...

Yesterday (Saturday) was a free day. Nothing too exciting to report except grocery shopping!

Today, Nola is not working so I asked if I could shadow at SANCCOB for the day.They had me help out in the ICU, where today there are eight penguins, (four blues-juveniles and four adults), two P3s (chicks), two kelp gulls, four hartlub gull chicks and one other bird (haven't learned what it is yet). There is a schedule for to follow for the day. It mostly consists of rounds of tubing fluids, tubing formula, feeding fish, giving meds, taking them to the pool for a swim, and then starting all over again. I have successfully been tubing birds all day today! I have probably already done 30 tubings, and it’s only lunch time. I am learning all of their cleaning procedures and about the different meds they use here. I think this afternoon we are getting in two "oilies" as they call them. They get oiled birds in almost every day here. It is quite sad. You see a lot of oiled birds and birds with seal bites, or even just very skinny unhealthy chicks. Others are doing quite well, though, and it makes you really happy to see how far they have come in only the week I have been here. You can really see the progress the treatments make.

What amazes me the most – and I just can't get over it – is how this place is really run by volunteers! The volunteers do everything here. By their second day, they are restraining and tubing birds! They give all the meds, keep all the records and do all the feeding. I wonder if they all know how lucky they are and how special it is to do so much with amazing animals and truly make a difference.

Well, now I am off to practice more tubing skills. Have a great day everyone! See you all soon!