Homecrew Featured in PDN Article

Jennifer Jackson, a reporter from Peninsula Daily News, recently visited our Marine Exhibit to interview our Thursday Home Crew Volunteers. She watched each volunteer meticulously clean and took notes about the interesting animals we must clean around! During her visit, a kindergarten class from Grant Street Elementary School came through the exhibit for a tour. Homecrew volunteers kept chugging along though they stopped to interact with many of the children. In her article, Jackson quotes Bill Dengler answer a question posed by one of the kindergartners. The child asked, "Why do you have to clean?" He said, "If we didn't do this, you wouldn't be able to look into the tank and see the fish and the fish wouldn't be able to look out and see you."

Click here to read the whole article! We love all of our volunteers, especially the ones willing to put on our stinky gloves!

We can always use more help! We have a variety of volunteer opportunities. To learn more please email Jean Walat our volunteer coordinator at jwalat@ptmsc.org

Sunflower Star Treat

Last Tuesday, during Home Crew, we were lucky enough to see a sunflower star eating! Those of you who know sunflower stars know that it is rare to see these many-legged critters feeding, as they don't often show their underside to an audience. Luckily I had my camera, and took this video for all to see. Enjoy!


Press play button to view video.

Grunt Sculpins Hatching!

After cleaning our large wall tank during Home Crew today, Dan noticed that hundreds of Grunt Sculpins (Rhamphocottus richardsoni) were beginning to hatch! While the juvenile Grunt Sculpins have been hatching slowly for a few weeks now, today marked an important day for this mother who has been fanning her eggs for so long! Check out the video we took this morning! Soozie tried to siphon out most of the hatchlings but they continued to hatch after she finished. God speed young Grunt Sculpin babies. Make us proud.

Dungeness Crab vs. Leather Star

After feeding all of the animals during Home Crew yesterday, I observed this rather feisty Dungeness Crab lifting up a Leather Star to get to the clams that had just been fed to the star. Another crab and a flatfish also came over to see what the Dungeness was up to. Check out these videos to see how it all played out!

Snow doesn't keep vounteers away!

Marine Exhibit on December 18th, 2008

View from the beach in Fort Worden State Park.

With a high predicted of 29 degrees Fahrenheit today, our dedicated "home crew" volunteers showed up despite the plethora of snow and below freezing temperatures to clean the tanks and feed the animals in the Marine Exhibit. Liza had to spend 20 minutes this morning unfreezing the lock on the outside of our building! Thursday volunteers consist of 4-5 regulars and are sometimes joined by others who choose to volunteer for the day. Week after week our "home crew" volunteers show up to roll their sleeves up, get dirty and find satisfaction in cleaning and caring for the animals in our tanks. Once you get the tricks of the trade down, cleaning can become fun and even satisfying as the monotony and meticulous nature of the work engulfs your thoughts and lets you "escape" for two hours. We would never be able to function, yet alone facilitate everything we do, without the generous support from our volunteers who are more than willing to help in any way possible. Thank you for your hard work and dedication. We love you for it!

Bill cleaning the round tank like a trooper.

Bill happily working away!

Betty cleaning shells out of Touch Tank Two.

Betty can tell you how to keep your gloves looking nice and new!

Sandy siphoning Touch Tank 3.

I can't imagine how Sandy managed to do this without gloves on in this cold weather!

Joe doing what he does best.

Liza prepping the food to feed to the animals.

All photos in this post taken by Allison Gravis