Marine Mammal Center - Report from Tony Q.

Volunteers Tony Querubin and Jim Brown are at the Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito... Here are the last few days of comments from Tony.... 

DAY 4

There were a lot more Canadian Geese foraging at the school playground that we pass by every morning.  We lost a baby elephant seal this morning. He started convulsing under water. He was my favorite baby :(

More of the same stuff today as before. Jim got a small scratch by one of the more lively baby elephant seals. He ended up going to the hospital as a precaution and got a dose of antibiotics. 
One of today's youth volunteers turned 18 today and they had a small birthday event during lunch. I didn't realize until today that some of the younger volunteers were high school students.
Several of the baby elephants seals that had been hand feeding started eating on their own today. One of the volunteers worked very patiently with them and got them retrieving fish in the water and ingesting them on their own. Hooray! 
Saw a wild turkey and some mallards on the way home this afternoon. AFLAC!

DAY 3

Today we had a large group of volunteers from PG&E so the regular volunteers (including us) got a break from handling herring and cleaning some of the pens.
Almost lost my eyeglasses in one of the pools and a baby seal splashed water in my face while I was scrubbing a pen. Those pups sure like to play with those cleaning brushes.
Got a quick tour of the Harbor Seal facility. In the afternoon we drove down to Pt Lobos State Reserve and released an adult sea lion and two of the older juvenile elephant seals.
On the way back to Mill Valley we stopped to view the wildlife at a pier at Moss Landing. We saw a whole bunch of sea lions and a few elephant seals on the wharf. There was a large colony of sea otters in the water and seagulls on the beach. Diving in the water were some cormorants. In the marsh across the highway, there were a bunch of different waterbirds - some were tiny white birds which I couldn't identify. Also saw some some ducks and geese along the way.

Day 2 was similar to yesterday.

- more herring handling
- boarding and restraining for blood draws (they don't like those needles!) and tube feeding
- there was a power outage right after we cleaned the pens which caused the pumps to fail and the water levels to drop. Some seals were having trouble getting out of the water so we had to get them out of the pools until the pumps started working again.
- attended the feeding of two adult partially blind sea lions
- took one of the elephant seals to an ultrasound check
- tomorrow they'll be releasing a female adult sea lion and several elephant seals

DAY 1

- made baby seal formula from freshly ground herring
- steered seals to move/swim in a certain direction using crowding boards so they can be separated for feeding/medication
- restrained seals during tube feeding
- measured out fish rations for the afternoon feeding
- transferred seals between pens via wheelbarrow
Sooo cooool.
We decided to leave a little early so that we could find the house more easily while there was daylight. It's hard to see it as it's behind the fence surrounding the front deck. Found a good chinese restaurant for dinner - Wang Can Wok :)  Weather is great! It was a little nippy this morning leaving the HoJo but the sun was out and the scenary on the way over was great. Jim was also an excellent tour and historical guide for the area.