Camile Speck, one of our board members who works for the Department of Fish and Wildlife, sent this email in response to her visit to the Marine Exhibit two weeks ago:
"I was lucky enough to get away from the office and participate in a shrimp test fishery in Discovery Bay yesterday. It was beautiful, mountains showing in all directions, and we had several glimpses of harbor porpoise. The whip cream on top of the layer cake of a day was seeing a female elephant seal dawdling about 10 feet off shore on the north side of Protection Island. On the way back to port we stopped at PTMSC’s marine exhibit to deliver some shrimp and graceful crab for displays….but what REALLY blew me away was learning that the people that take care of the critters have managed to maintain quite a few shrimp, rock scallops and a couple native clams from the WDFW display at the 2008 Wooden Boat Festival. (These animals were “retired” to PTMSC after they entertained 30,000 people who passed through the Festival.) These can be temperamental creatures to maintain in aquaria, making this another example of the amazingly good work by the staff and volunteers at PTMSC. (Keep in mind that shrimp are naturally diurnal migrators who go to great depths during the day and come to the shallows at night, and the clams are being maintained despite tank conditions that naturally lean toward anaerobic substrate….I’m impressed!)"
We were pleased to hear such a positive reflection in response to all the hard work we do here and wanted to share it with our readers!
Hi you amazing Americorps gals, and you are amazing. Camille is impressed with your ability to keep her orphaned critters alive (me, too, in the case of the geoducks) but I'm impressed with the way you've created such a lovely natural-looking piling tank. When I came by on Monday to help with the spring cleaning, I could hardly stay focused on the windows with those beautiful white cucumbers and worms calling to me. It makes me eager to resume my regular volunteer interpretive duty. Thanks, gals, and Chrissy, too, for keeping this exhibit so fascinating for wannabe naturalists (and non-biologists) like myself. Linda Martin
ReplyDeleteWe saw 4 harbor porpoises to the N of the PTMSC this weekend! It was early in the morning and they were moving to the north, looked like they were fishing! Also visited th PTMSC, it was lovely. Thanks for all you do! --An Olympia family
ReplyDeleteThat is very cool that you got to see harbor porpoises; especially since they were so active. Thanks so much for coming in to the PTMSC and for checking out the blog!
ReplyDelete-Liza