Jen Godfrey

Mote Marine Lab Dolphin and Whale Hospital, Sarasota, Florida

My internship was spent at the Mote Marine Laboratory Dolphin and Whale Hospital located in Sarasota, Florida. While Mote Marine Laboratory started forty years ago, the dolphin and whale hospital is a newer edition to the well-known research facility and aquarium, and was initiated in 1994. The hospital is made up of a small staff supported by many volunteers with two 50,000 gallon tanks and one 200,000 lagoon. The dolphin and whale hospital also cares for adult sea turtles that come in under the sea turtle conservation program. Both the sea turtle and dolphin and whale hospital provide critical and chronic care for stranded animals with the ultimate goal of returning the animals into the wild. Whether the animal survives or not, the hospital seeks to expand its knowledge on the biology and veterinary care for each animal it takes on. This extends beyond the animal’s time spent at the hospital; all released dolphins and whales are tracked for a period of time after release to follow up on their health and increase knowledge of their biology.
My internship duties consisted primarily of animal care responsibilities including food preparation and feeding, and facility and water quality maintenance. Most days were spent handling a lot of dead fish and scrubbing tanks. Duties also included animal handling and restraint for veterinary procedures, and assistance with data entry and any current projects or animal releases. While I was there these projects included preparing the sea turtle rehabilitation facility to be torn down for reconstruction, assisting in the establishment of a docent program, and the preliminary research for a study on the environmental enrichment in two of the chronic care patients. This study would specifically look at the use of enrichment devices or toys within the tank. I also assisted in many miscellaneous tasks as needed, including hurricane preparation and building enrichment devices. All interns were also required to complete an independent project. My project consisted of studying resting behavior in the current dolphin patients. Due to the nature of the internship, I worked around 70 hours a week, including a night shift.
Most of my original objectives were met. I had, however, hoped to gain raw data for my senior integrative project by using data from the study on enrichment devices. Due to time constraints, however, this project did not make it beyond the preliminary stage. I did however gain a good base of knowledge for preparing and completing this project through assisting in the preliminary research and by discussing of the ultimate goals for the study.
I gained extensive experience in the field of animal care as well as an understanding of all hurtles that come along with any marine facility, especially one that cares for marine mammals. I gained direction in how I want to spend my future and especially how I do not want to spend it. I learned volumes of information on sea turtle and dolphin biology and all of the anthropogenic hazards facing these species. I was especially impressed by the level of human ignorance and how this jeopardizes wildlife rehabilitation and conservation.
The experience and knowledge I gained through my internship will provide me with a foundation for my senior integrative project. Because I participated in the preliminary phases of the study on enrichment behavior I will be better prepared to initiate my own research with Mystic Aquarium. I also gained extensive information into what goes on behind the scenes in rehabilitation and captive animal facilities and how this would affect my research. Thanks to my internship I posses a good background in captive marine mammal behavior and how trained animals can differ from rehabilitation animals.
For my senior project I will work on and honors thesis at Mystic Aquarium. I will study a young female harbor porpoise at the facility that has been declared unreleasable, investigating techniques of integrating enrichment into her surroundings as well as the best method of acclimating her to captivity and training her in husbandry behaviors. I hope to look at the change in behavior in the harbor porpoise as enrichment and training are added to her environment and how these changes will affect her over a longer period of time.