Schools

Hi Sea Fans!

Keep a look out for me, I'll be at Herschel Girls' School tomorrow, Woodstock library next week Tues and Wynberg International School on 8 April!  Yes, talks can be arranged at your school.  The author, Heidi, will tell you all about me and what I get up to and show you some interesting goodies.  Contact Heidi at abby@telkomsa.net if you'd like to book her for an event at your school (teachers and parents to contact please).  Heidi also takes me to birthday parties if you'd like to do crafty things with a sea theme.

Enough of that though, I want to tell you about what happened at the aquarium this week.  It was Pirate Week!

As you can see, the staff all got dressed up as crew of the pirate ship - quite funny really, especially seeing as the penguins took to pulling at the outfits and stealing one of the aquarists' swords!  He really shouldn't have taken it into the enclosure with him but I guess he's learnt now not to take unnecessary loose items in with him.  The animals weren't only stealing OUR things, but the public's too!  The catfish managed to swallow a pair of glasses!  Someone was leaning over the tank and they fell in, so Bobcat (the catfish) promptly swam over and swallowed them thinking that they were food.  A hysterical volunteer came running up to me to tell me about it, but luckily another aquarist had seen it happen and reacted quickly.  A little bit of net movement in the water made Bobcat spit the glasses out - shew!  Please do me a favour - if you're in an aquarium, make sure that you don't wear your glasses on your head, don't put your hands in the water and don't drop or throw things in the water....and PLEASE don't bang on the windows.  We also had a few excited members of the public bashing the otter window to get them to wake up.  It's not nice to disturb the animals... AND they scratched the window with their jewellery.

So it was an eventful week once again.  Oh yes, a weird looking animal came in today too...I'll let you know what it is next time.

Have a great week Sea Fans.
Cheers!
Abby
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Cockroaches of the sea

Hi Sea Fans!

Yes, believe it or not, there is something living in our oceans that is very similar to a cockroach.  Anyone scared of cockroaches?  Well, the ocean cockroaches can get bigger than 200kg!!!  How's that for scary?!
Want to know what I'm talking about?.....Nomura's jellyfish!

Photo: CORAL Magazine

These guys seem to be taking over the oceans and the possible reasons that the scientists give are:
Overfishing; Declining water quality (yucky water); and Rising sea temperatures (warmer water).

In the Sea of Japan, the numbers of these jellyfish have suddenly increased more than ever.  Since 2002, the Nomura Jellyfish population has exploded SIX times!! In 2005, as many as 20 billion jellies filled the Sea of Japan, causing losses in the fishing industry. 

Predators, like many fish and turtles, eat jellyfish, but jellyfish eat fish eggs and sometimes fish too.  So if too many fish are taken out of the sea by humans, jellyfish can take their place in the food chain and take over (Jellies and many fish eat the same thing - plankton).

Photo: CORAL Magazine

These jellies can also live in water with lowered oxygen levels, which most fish can't (fishies need to breathe!).  Increased temperatures and nutrient (food for plankton) levels cause lower oxygen levels.  Increased nutrient levels also mean increased food for the jellies.  So it looks like right now, with global warming and nutrient run-off from the land into the sea, we could be in trouble...Nomura jelly trouble.

There are several thousands of species of jellyfish, but these Nomura jellies are the ones who cause a problem - they reproduce like mad, grow fast, eat almost anything and can swim around in yucky water which most fish can't do.  This is why they are like cockroaches!

It's possible that nature will sort itself out and the jellyfish populations will become a normal size again (other jellyfish have been through this before), but we don't know so it's actually quite scary.  Let's hold thumbs that the scientists find out soon.

Have a great week Sea Fans!
Cheers
Abby
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[Info taken from an article by Richard Stone in the CORAL Magazine]
PS. Do you know that jellyfish eat Sea Monkeys? : )

PREDATORS

Hi Sea Fans!

It's been a scorcher the last few days, our air conditioning in the aquarium has had to work overtime!!  Not to mention the chillers for the tanks!  Well, I hope you're all doing well and getting ready to read about my next adventures because Book II is coming out this month. 

Publishing books is an expensive exercise and I'm always looking for companies who are willing to sponsor a print run or part thereof so that I can keep the price of the book at a decent level. New Era joined me on this next book as a part sponsor because they believe in Marine Education.  Check out their website (http://www.new-era-aquaculture.com/home.html) if you're looking for good fish food!

Speaking of hot days and wanting to cool down, have you ever wondered what it's like to be the opposite: an animal who has to live in ice and snow?  Well, if you'd like to know how marine mammals are adapted to the cold, try this:

• Get a bowl of water with ice cubes in it.
• Put on a rubber glove and stick your hand into the water for a while (not too long!) - time yourself if you'd like.
• When you can't stand the cold anymore, take your hand out of the water and glove.
• Take butter and smear a layer over your hand and then put it back into the glove and then back into the ice water.

Can you feel a difference?  Amazing what fat can do to keep you warm, right?  Blubber is a layer of fat that marine mammals, like seals, have under their skin to keep them warm.

So on a beautiful hot day, appreciate that you don't have that layer of blubber but on the cold days...hmmm, you'll just have to add more layers!

Have a great week Sea Fans and don't forget to write.
Cheers
Abby
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Aquarium Valentine

Hi Sea Fans!

I hope you all had a great Valentine's Day.  We had such fun at the aquarium...we had to come up with ideas for Valentine Sea Crafts and the best one would be used as the activity for the day in our Ocean Crafts Centre.  Next year maybe you'd like to try this one:

A loving Fiddler Crab.

The heart body is filled with small chocolates (2 hearts joined around the edges back-to-back make a purse).  Have fun being crafty and don't forget that all sorts of marine craft kits are for sale, just mail me at abby@telkomsa.net.

Have a great week Sea Fans.
Cheers
Abby
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PS. Predators (Book II) is at the printers so you can start saving your money for a copy when it comes out next month!  New crafts will also be available.

Squirt squirt blow!

Hi Sea Fans!

Strange title I know, but you'll understand in a minute.

I was explaining something to members of the public yesterday and realised that I haven't told you guys about it.  Do you know that fish like the boxfish blow at the sand to uncover their food?  Well, do you want to know something even more interesting? .....Our boxfish got used to food dropping into the water from the surface so what he started doing was spitting water at us like a fountain (blowing the water surface for food).  Cute, but this is of course not what we wanted, so we had to make a plan.  Now our boxfish gets food buried under the sand and he loves it!  Instead of blowing water at the surface, now he blows the sand like he naturally would and the public get to see how boxfish feed out at sea.

Just another little morsel of behind-the-scenes information for you. : )
Have a great week Sea Fans.
Cheers
Abby
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Bugs

Hi Sea Fans!

The New Year knows how to start with a bang!  Between rushing to stranding calls and sorting out public query phone calls, we've really been kept busy this last month.  On top of all that, my favourite large exhibit got a parasite infection - headaches deluxe!

Fish, including those in the wild, carry parasites.  It's just like with humans, we have bugs inside us, but they stay in check unless we get stressed in some way and then they take over.  Well, that's what happened in one of our large exhibits.  We had a temperature spike a little while ago and true as Bob, that stress caused an outbreak of parasites.  They were only on the stingrays though so we knew that they were host specific (they only sit on certain animals).  The lab guys got samples of the parasites, had a look at them under the microscope and soon enough, we knew how to treat them.  

An aquarist checking out a parasite under the microscope.


Treatment meant that each stingray had to get a certain amount of medication every day, which seems easy enough, but it's not so easy when they get used to the taste and know what you're up to!  They're just like those of us who don't like brussel sprouts - you can try to cover the little green things up with all sorts of other things, but that taste will still be there and we'll know they're there!  Stingrays are clever that way, you can't fool them. We eventually had to put their medication (in powder form) inside capsules so that we could tuck each pill into a smelly (but fresh) piece of sardine and that would trick them into taking their medication. 

Putting the powder medication into the capsules.

The treatment worked well and our stingrays are looking healthy and are MUCH hungrier again. 

That's what I love about this job, you have to be able to do a whole range of jobs - cleaner, feeder, doctor, trainer and a whole lot more.  It keeps you on your toes, but it's great fun when your job isn't the same thing every day!  

Here's hoping that some of you want to do what I do one day.
Have a great weekend Sea Fans!
Cheers
Abby
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Shark Revival

Hi Sea Fans!

I was thinking about what I should write this week and then all chaos broke loose.  The day was running as planned, the routine stuff like cleaning of tanks and morning feeding was all done, the divers were finishing their last two dive feeds and suddenly...we got a call.  A public member was desperately looking for someone to help a shark in distress.  Some fishermen had caught a shark in their nets by mistake, removed it and left it on the beach!  Now we all know that sharks breathe IN WATER not on land, they need the water.  When we got there, these guys reckoned that the shark was fine and they were going to put it back in a minute.  Hmmmm, I don't think so.   Anyway, without further ado, we were off to the aquarium to try and save this poor animal.  Unfortunately, although we tried everything, including swimming it for over 4 hours, the shark didn't make it.  It was looking positive at one stage when he gave a few flicks of his tail and swam on his own for a bit, but then his muscles stiffened and he couldn't anymore.

Photo: James Watt

Why do I tell you such a sad story, you ask?  Well, it's so that you know the good and the bad.  Aquarium staff are often called out to help save a stranded or injured animal and unfortunately, some of the animals are too far gone by the time help arrives.  What you can do for me today (if you live by the sea) is make a promise to help stranded marine life by calling help (your local aquarium or marine life rehabilitation centre or Nature Conservation officials) when you see that they need it. [If you don't live by the sea, land animals and birds often need help too... and zoos, the SPCA and Nature Conservation can help them, so please make the call.]

Yes, I've had a few exaggerated phone calls like the one about the stranded turtle that was the size of a car tyre and possibly a tractor tyre (He ended up being smaller than a hub cap!) but you know what, we'd rather have a mistaken identity (tortoises don't have flippers like turtles) or an exaggerated call than having an animal suffer when we could have helped so please make that call and save a life.

Thanks Sea Fans, have a great week.
Cheers!
Abby
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