Critical Care Facility Information

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Sophie O’Neal’
5 years ago
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1 Critical Care Facility Information The following information will not only help you when stationed to the BTS Hallway, it also gives more information to be used on the behind the scenes tour itself in the rehabilitation area. This information begins on the south side of the hallway at the dive locker and works its way north to the surgical suite. Dive Locker This is our brand new dive locker for our dive team. The dive team is made up of all volunteers who are here every morning and every evening scrubbing all the pools to keep them clean and safe for the animals. The team logs about 400 hours underwater every month! Peter s X-Ray Station have kids act as vets to see what s wrong & schedule for surgery Turtle Station B: Peter Turtle model dry docked on cart Medical Chart with dry erase area X-rays in folder <Peter is on a cart dry docked on some towels. His entanglement has been cut off and his wound has been cleaned and protected with paste to prevent infection. Monofilament line is still coming from his mouth and reaches back and is taped to his shell> Here we see our new friend Peter, after the initial stages of his rehabilitation. The monofilament entanglement has been cut away and his wound has been cleaned up and covered with a protective paste. We can t really use bandages because they would fall off in the water. This paste protects the wound from infection as it heals. You can see that extra line has been taped to his shell to prevent him from swallowing it any further. (Pull out x-ray) We can see from this x-ray exactly where the hook is located. We need to be expedient, scheduling the removal. Poor Peter can t eat while the hook is in there, and if we wait too long, it could move to a point where we couldn t reach it or remove it safely. Let s schedule him for surgery later today. (Point out what medical procedures have already been done on the med report. Write on dryerase portion of medical report to schedule the surgery.) WQ / Filters / Systems (Graphic on wall illustrating filter systems) This area showcases some of our water quality efforts here at Clearwater Marine Aquarium. With the recent addition of the pools you see out these windows, we have over 900,000 gallons in our various exhibits.

2 We are running around 35 individual life support systems to pump and filter all this water with a total flow rate in the neighborhood of about 8000 gallons per minute. The average home swimming pool features a flow rate of 100 gallons per minute by comparison. The water that we use in the aquarium comes directly from Clearwater Bay. This saves us from the time and expense of having to mix our own sea water. You can imagine what it would cost to make over 1 million gallons of sea water! But since the water does come from outside, we have to be extra careful we are not bringing in any unwanted impurities such as algae and bacteria. Across the hall here, we have our water quality lab and pharmacy. Lab Our water quality team tests the water quality at least 4 times each day in each of the habitats! With over 35 individual life support systems, that is a full time job all by itself! This is also where all the different medicines for our animals are stored. Every hospital needs a pharmacy! Pharmacy Many of our animals take vitamins to help supplement their diet and ensure that they receive all the nutrients they would like in the wild. Our well stocked pharmacy makes sure that each of our patients has the right medicines to fight off infections or to help with chronic ailments. Necropsy Lab Unfortunately, sometimes we get calls for animals that have washed ashore and already passed away. We can still learn a lot about the animals and the environment. Having a necropsy suite onsite will allow us to get the information in a much more timely manner and reduces the possibility of errors. We have the space just inside those double gray doors, and are currently accepting donations to raise the funds needed to fully equip the lab. Turtle Hospital Through these windows, you can see our new turtle hospital and rehabilitation facilities. Directly across from here you can see the ongoing construction that will house otter rehab areas, more turtle stranding, and three dolphin stranding pools so we can take care of even more animals. Currently we have an intensive care unit across the driveway for sea turtles afflicted by papilloma virus. These turtles must be kept separated from the resident turtles and other turtles in rehabilitation. If you are interested in getting a closer look at the rehabilitation area, you might wish to sign up for our behind the scenes tour. Notice that the pools are somewhat covered and the windows are tinted with one-way film so the turtles cannot see us. Why do you think that is? We want to minimize the contact we have with these animals so they don t become used to humans. Remember, we plan to release these animals to the wild and don t want them to develop an association between humans and food.

3 Why Do Animals Come To Us? There are a variety of reasons why animals come to us for rehabilitation. They could have been orphaned like Nicholas, Hope and Oscar. Perhaps they contracted a disease like the morbillivirus as in the case of Schroeder or the papilloma virus like our paps turtles in the ICU. They could have been injured by boat strikes or caught in monofilament line. Maybe they swallowed a plastic bag which looks like what under water? A jellyfish or a squid! There are many things that we can do to minimize the danger to marine life, including disposing of our garbage and fishing lines appropriately and observing no-wake zones in designated areas while boating. Unusual Past Animals (Graphics on wall for Anna and George) One of the more interesting animals we rescued was a leatherback sea turtle named, Anna. The leatherback sea turtle and is the largest of the sea turtles. They can get even bigger than this one reaching weights approaching 2000 pounds and are called the Volkswagons of the Sea. Anna was not fully grown so she only weighed around 950 pounds. She had one of her flippers amputated due to an injury with a crab trap. She was so large, her good flipper kept rubbing along the side of the rehab pool. To keep it from becoming irritated, a volunteer made her this flipper cover. This really puts into perspective the massive size of this animal! Another unusual animal we had was a six week old sperm whale named George. George at only 6 weeks of age - was 10 feet long and weighed 1100 pounds! <Show George s baby bottle> This is the bottle we used to feed the sperm whale George his 10 gallons of formula per day. <Show Hope s baby bottle> This is a bottle that we used to feed our baby dolphin Hope when she arrived. You can see, it s much smaller than the one we used with George! See how long the nipple is? That s because dolphins and whales do not have lips! Instead, they can roll their tongue into a straw! Food Prep Board What do you think most of our animals eat? Right! Fish. And a lot of it. Our animals eat over 2000 pounds of restaurant quality fish every month! Nicholas alone eats close to 17 pounds of fish every day! How would you like that food bill? Well thanks for going on this tour because you are helping us pay for it! <Get fake herring bucket from next to shelving. Select a guest to carry it and put on scale. Don t forget to put bucket back for the next tour!> This stainless steel bucket is filled with fish! Who would like to see how heavy it is? <have guest take the bucket and place it on the scale> As you can see, this represents about 7 pounds of fish. So Nicholas would eat over two of these every single day!

4 Each of our animals gets an individualized diet plan. To determine the diets of all the animals at CMA, we consult with our veterinarian and base their diet on current weight, ideal weight, age, and other dietary needs. All fish are not created equal! Different kinds of fish have different nutritional content. For example, herring is high in fat and calories so it s an energy fish. Capelin on the other hand is very high in protein and is also very hydrating. That is where dolphins get their fresh water: from the fish they eat! Our otters diet is a bit different; they eat Lake Smelt (a small fish) and feline diet, which looks like ground meat. It is what the zoos feed to the large cats. The otters love it and it makes it easy to grind up medicine or vitamins for them as needed. Our green sea turtles get fresh romaine lettuce! That s the same romaine lettuce we eat! The green sea turtles are primarily vegetarians, and love lettuce! In the wild, these turtles would eat sea grass and turtle grass. When eating this they also gobble up small crustaceans which add the protein in their diet. Since romaine lettuce doesn t have that protein we supplement their diet with capelin and squid. Kitchen This is our new food prep area, where all the food is prepared for our animals. It is over twice the size of our old food prep area. Early every morning, this is a very busy place! Volunteers and staff weigh out the food and prepare it according to the animal s needs. Some animals like their fish whole, and others like it cut into smaller pieces. The veterinary staff determines how much food each animal needs, and this is noted on the board. As you can see the food prep area is kept very clean! The food prep area is regulated by the USDA, and they can come at any time, unannounced, and inspect us. The area is scrubbed a minimum of three times daily. The amount of time spent cleaning and preparing food is represented by 40 man-hours per day!

5 Surgery Demo Peter s Surgery You can have kids in the hallway assist as surgeons The hemostats to remove the hook are located to the left of Peter on the wall. Select a surgeon and have them use the hemostats (tongs) to grab the monofilament line close to Peter s mouth. Have the surgeon slowly pull the hook out and place the hook and line inside the disposal tube mounted to the right of the exhibit. After the tour, use the hook replacement tool to replace the hook back inside Peter. The hook replacement tool is located to the right of the exhibit on the wall. It consists of a thin dowel with a notched end. Place the curve of the hook into the notch and pull the line tight so it doesn t fall off. Push the hook back inside Peter and then release the line. Slowly pull out the dowel and replace it on the wall. Here s Peter again and ready for surgery. As you can see, he has been anesthetized and hooked up to an endoscope and heart monitor. We actually use a fetal heart monitor to monitor the heart and blood flow. That is the sound you are hearing. On the monitor you can see the endoscope camera locating the hook in Peter s esophagus. It also shows an outstanding view of the esophageal papillae inside Peter s digestive system. These fleshy protrusions help to keep food going in the right direction as the turtle eats. Now it s time to remove the hook. Who wants to be our surgeon today? <select a surgeon and have them select a tool, carefully grab the end of the leader and slowly remove the hook. After the hook is out, have the guest place it into the disposal tube.> By the way, there are monofilament disposal tubes like this throughout the coastal areas where fishing is common. Please make a point to dispose of any monofilament, leaders and hooks in these units to help prevent more injuries like Peter s here. New Surgical Suite This area is our new lab and surgical suite. Note it is over twice the size of our original surgical suite used as a set for the movie Dolphin Tale. It will have all the medications and equipment we use in caring for our animals and the vets actually perform many operations and procedures here. One of our most common surgeries is the removal of fibropapilloma tumors from the sea turtles. <point out LASER, Anesthesia machine, and endoscopy equipment.> You can find out more about this at the downstairs ICU turtle display. We even do dental work. Cooper the river otter once got a root canal from our Vet staff! People will even be able to watch through the viewing window if they want!

Sea Turtles. Madam. Max Cocoa Rob. Cupid. Bailey

Sea Turtles. Madam. Max Cocoa Rob. Cupid. Bailey Thank you for your adoption of our resident sea turtles. We have included photos and a short bio of each turtle. For complete information on each of these amazing animals and all the residents of Clearwater