Training Day

Hello All,

Today was my Texas Marine Mammal Stranding Network (TMMSN) volunteer training day in Galveston. I got to learn all about how to rescue stranded dolphins. Now that I've completed my training course I can become a part of a team that rescues, researches rehabilitates, and releases dolphins found along the Texas coast.

At the training today we first had to sit through three hours of lectures! There were several different speakers. For the first hour of the lectures we learned about the history of TMMSN. Then for the next 30 minutes we learned about the anatomy of dolphins and whales and also how to do a necropsy (an autopsy for animals) on dolphins. Then we listned to an hour long lecture and learned about all the procedures of rehabilitating dolphins. That was my favorite lecture. The speaker was fun and engergetic and everything she taugh us was interesting.
Then we had another 30 minute lecture on "what every volunteer should know". It was basically a book of rules. So many rules to remember!!!

By that time I was getting a bit tired and had a pretty bad headache (heh, I only got three and a half hours of sleep)but luckily it was time to break for lunch. So we all filled out of the auditorium into the hall for lunch. Most unfortunately they were serving hotdogs. I decided to skip a meal and just eat a bag of chips.

After lunch was over we headed outdoors for in-water training. There we were seperated into four groups of ten. Hehe, I got stuff in a group of mostly old ladies! There were two girls in my group that were around my age though.
We had different stations we had to train at. We had to complete all the tests in order to work with live animals.

My groups first station was the "mock stranding". They took us through the steps of what you would do if you came across a dolphin on the beach. Hehe, it was really funny because they used the ladies little boy as the dolphin. He made a pretty good little dolphin. He flipped around and made it hard for us to get him on to the stretcher. It was fun.

After that we headed over to take a strength test. It was really easy. All we had to do was carry 50 pounds at should hight for fifty feet.

Then we got to get in the pool. That was my favorite part. The water felt sooo good. It was a big pool too! In the pool they taugh us how to capture a dolphin that's in a pool. Once a week they had to do blood test on the dolphins so they are always catching them and taking them out of the pool. So that's why we learned that. My group had to form a "wall" in the pool and surround the "dolphin", which was the lady in charge. They usually have an inflatible dolphin but she played the role of the dolphin today. After we surrounded the dolphin one person had to grab it and secure it and then the rest of the team came in and helped hold it still. It wasn't all that easier. The water was really deep. I had to stand on my tip toes. And you had to move really fast to get to the dolphin.

After we complete all the stations the training was over. So now I can go down to Galveston any time I want and work with real live dolphins! I'm pretty excited.

I bought a shirt. Here is a picture of what it looks like.


Until next time,
Juliana.