We spent a small bit of time outside today – for dolphin data collection. It was an overcast day and rather windy. The underwater visibility was not great – but the dolphins were social and curious and interactive … with each other! 🐬😃 The feature photo is Georgie and Lenca swimming together and away from the MVA. Below you can see that Tank had to spend a bit of time fully in Kathleen’s personal space. Gizmo watched as he tried to get Kathleen to turn over the MVA to him!
Breakfast was nourishing, in addition to being yummy! When you study dolphins, you see them everywhere … even in a banana!
And after eating, we trekked to the classroom to have a Q&A session with Samir Galindo, GM of AKR. He spent an hour plus with us answering all kinds of questions but especially about the sustainability efforts conducted by AKR. Following Samir, we watched the Loro Parque long film that John produced and learned more about the DCP killer whale research. Manon spoke to us after the film (and answered our questions) about her Relationship Quality research and also the Pair Swim Position study and DCP’s killer whale studies overall. We learned much and enjoyed all the video illustrations.
Lunch was followed by about 50 min of free time – a couple of us took a cat nap, others read, still others walked around a bit. We returned to the classroom (notice the theme here for today!?) to hear Jennifer speak about the coral restoration project promoted by AKR. Quite interesting details. We then practiced our dolphin IDs from watching the morning video data. The blog (see below) wrapped up the day and then we prepared for Fiesta Night! Delicious!!
Below are some of our thoughts.
Braydon – I really enjoyed the coral restoration talk that we had today. It gives me hope for coral reefs into the future.
Riley H.- I found the coral restoration lecture very interesting, and it was cool to hear how much Jennifer knows and can teach us.
Rebecca – I enjoyed learning about Manon’s research outside of this field course, and how the research is based on the value, security and compatibility among pairs.
Riley B.- I really liked Samir’s talk with us and was impressed by his comprehensive knowledge of all aspects of AKR and the staff. I really liked learning about their energy sustainability efforts.
Rafaela – I enjoyed learning about how much Samir gives back to his community and Manon’s research on orcas and how much more there is to know.
Katerina – I enjoyed learning about all the conservation efforts that are happening at the resort and have been happening. And I also was able to see a dolphin nursing for the first time.
Katie – I really enjoyed the talk on coral and coral restoration. It really inspired me to learn more and i’d like to participate in one of those efforts sometime in my life.
Aubrie – I found the discussion surrounding orcas and keeping dolphins in managed care very interesting. It was neat to hear the different perspectives on how managed care can be done well. I was given a new perspective on what it means to have good managed care dolphins.
Quincy – I really enjoyed learning about the coral restoration, and it was cool seeing other coral research outside of the DCP program.
John –
Manon – Although it was a long day in the classroom, I was impressed by the engagement of the students throughout the day.
Shane – Fiesta Night!
Cheers
CSU’s S.O.T. Jones
P.S. Rafaela, Katerina, Aubrie, Quincy all won the dance contest – keeping DCP’s and CSU’s winning streak alive for yet another field course!