Coming Home

Dave Allen, Delaware Expedition

The big day! Chris got up around 2 am to partially drain the holding tank. The rest of us got to sleep in until 4. The first step was to fill up the truck's tank with water at a nearby boat launch. Since the truck is equipped with a generator and heavy duty water pump, this only took a few minutes.


Jackie running the hose to the water. Notice the sand filter, generator and most importantly, the caffeinated beverage!


With the water level of the tank lower, I got my first good look at the rays!


The rays were collected from the tank with a large hoop net...


... and slightly less effectively with plastic collecting bags ...


... and then hand delivered to Jackie who was waiting in the back of the truck.

Now that all the rays were in the truck, all that was left was to drain and clean the holding tank. Watching Chris and Brian scoop out sediment and uneaten ray food (quahogs) I started thinking about all of the hard work that our aquarists put in to make sure we have amazing exhibits and healthy animals. They are at once marine biologists, explorers, plumbers, truck drivers and educators. Above all, they don't seem to mind getting their hands (or feet) dirty.


Notice all of the sediment (among other things) that was left in the bottom of the holding tank.


Since the rays would be in the truck for up to ten hours, whoever was riding in back had to monitor water quality. The Star Trek tricorder-like thingy that Jackie is holding is used to measure dissolved oxygen and tell us to add or reduce the O2 coming from the cylinders. Temperature, ammonia from the rays' waste and pH were also monitored. When the acidity increased, pre-portioned bags of sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) were added.


Here the water comes very close to the edge. Notice the design for the transport tank doesn't include a watertight cover. My experience in the back of the truck reminded me of being on a log flume ride: At some point, no matter what you do, you are going to get wet. So you might as well just enjoy the ride.


Fast forward about ten hours; we arrived at the Duxbury holding facility where the other rays were being held. Before they could join the others, the cownose rays were treated with anti-parasite medication and given a five minute freshwater dip.

Despite the stresses of being collected and driven in a noisy truck for most of the day, the rays began schooling as soon as then joined the other rays. I feel really fortunate to have experienced this leg of the collection trip and now I'm really excited for our new shark and ray exhibit to open next year.

Here is an underwater video of our cownose rays is Duxbury. If you look closely you may spot an Atlantic stingray and a southern stingray.



- Dave

The MERR Institute's bone yard

Dave Allen, Delaware Expedition

Since we had gotten to Lewes too late to see the rays the night before, we were anxious to check them and their holding tank out. I volunteered to ride in the back of the transport vehicle to prepare myself for the long trip home.


Rays holding tank

Unfortunately, I would have to wait to see the rays. The water in the holding tank and the nearby Delaware Bay was dark brown. Much of this color comes from sediment running from nearly 350 square miles of salt marshes into the bay.


Next door to the holding tank was the MERR Institute, a non-profit stranding response and rehabilitation organization that works with marine mammals and sea turtles.


The MERR Institute's bone yard. Like the New England Aquarium, they use biofacts—preserved animal parts—to help educate the public.


Biofacts don't magically appear white and clean. First they have to be prepared. Here MERR executive director Suzanne Thurman shows off her compost area where she uses manure to strip the bones clean of soft tissue.


Here two of our teen interns Libna (left) and Sheena (right) show off our impressive collection of biofacts. Biofacts like this sawfish rostrum and bull shark jaw allow visitors to physically interact with animals that are otherwise kept behind several inches of glass or acrylic.

Tomorrow we pack up our rays and head back to Boston. Better get to bed early because it's going to be an early morning.

-Dave

Dela-Where?

Dave Allen, Delaware Expedition

When asked if I wanted to go to Delaware to assist with the Aquarium's cownose ray collecting trip on short notice I immediately said yes. I had never been to Delaware nor had it ever crossed my mind to go there (sorry Delawareans) so this would likely be my only opportunity to see The First State.


My view for the next ten hours. Little did I know that getting to Delaware would take nearly ten hours and take me through six states!

On Monday morning I met up with aquarists Brian Nelson and Jackie Anderson on the Aquarium plaza. Our mission was to drive to Lewes, Delaware and transport fifteen cownose rays back to Boston. The rays had been caught earlier in the week (read Megan's blog about ray collecting here) but there had been too many to take back in one trip. Our secondary mission was to also bring back aquarist Chris Payne who had stayed in Lewes to tend to the rays.


Chris made a lot of friends during his time in Lewes, like this diamondback terrapin.

I had heard that it was going to be easier to transport fifteen venomous fishes across six states and safely back to the Aquarium than to get Chris back to Boston. After spending the better part of the week in a sunny beach town, he had likely "gone native."


Though empty in this picture, the back of the Aquarium's transport truck would be filled with fifteen cownose rays and two humans for the long ride back to Boston the next day.

The holding tank can hold as much as 660 gallons of water and the back of the truck has all the life support systems needed to transport marine animals over long distances, including a sand filter and tanks of oxygen. This truck has even transported goliath groupers for our Blue Hole exhibit all the way from Marathon, Florida back to Boston.

We got into Lewes, Delaware late tonight. Hopefully tomorrow, I'll get to see some more of the area and a peek at our new cownose rays.

-Dave

Transporting cownose rays

Guénäelle Rubin, Delaware Expedition

Transporting 30 cownose rays is as easy as it sounds.

The first step was to haul a holding tank onto a fishing boat in Cambridge, Maryland, then catch the rays and place them into the tank. Lucky for us, the fishermen whose boat we were on have generations of experience catching and hauling fish, so we had plenty of help and good company for this first step. When the fishermen pulled up the weir net, about 40 rays splashed the water with their wings. As we had only expected to see maybe 9 or 10 in the net, it was an amazing site to see.


Here, a cownose ray is being placed into the tank. The lid, which looks like a slice of swiss cheese, is there to prevent the rays from jumping out of the tank and hurting themselves.


Chris D. checks the oxygen level of the tank.

Once the fishermen checked all their nets and collected buckets of menhaden and blue crabs, it was time to return to shore. The rays were carefully transported 2 by 2 into a larger holding tank in NEAq’s box truck.



I sat in the back of the truck for a portion of the 2 hour drive and learned how challenging it can be to continually monitor the oxygen levels of the tank all while convincing myself that motion sickness does not exist.



The inside of the truck has no windows and therefore no way to hold my gaze on a green calming landscape. Just a loud rattling noise and the splish-splashing of tank water can confirm that we must, in fact, be on some kind of road. Luckily, aquarist Chris was there to manage the care of the tank!


We finally arrived in Lewes, Delaware to transport the rays into a large holding tank.


This is where the rays will stay until we are ready to make the long haul back home to Boston.

The duration of this drive is expected to be about 10 hours, if all goes smoothly. During this time, aquarists take turns riding inside the box truck and monitoring the holding tank for pH, ammonia and oxygen levels. These tests are done constantly throughout the drive so there is no time for "punch buggy" or Mad Libs.



Megan and I need to return to the Aquarium before the cownose ray transportation mission is complete. However, Dave Allen, another fellow educator at the New England Aquarium, will be coming down to Maryland to help with the transport of the rays. Stay tuned for Dave’s cownose ray blogging adventures!

Until next time…


-Guénäelle (excited about notebooks and hotels)


- Megan (enjoying a yummy hometown Maryland meal with Dave W. and Chris P.)

Clear Water & Mighty Makos

My very first encounters with sharks happened right here in the waters off New England. It was about twenty-five years ago that I met a shark scientist named Wes Pratt, who worked for the National Marine Fisheries laboratory, Apex Predator division in Narragansett, Rhode Island. Wes had built his own shark cage and was diving offshore with some of his colleagues, like Greg Skomal, who continues to work with sharks today and has recently done some cutting-edge research with several species. After pestering Wes for some time, I was invited to join the group and was absolutely thrilled. The sharks we most often saw were blue sharks. These were exhilarating days filled with anticipation as I steamed offshore and spent hours drifting in the chilly water, watching stunning indigo blue animals nosing through the slick. Occasionally we saw a basking shark and once saw a couple of dusky sharks, but mostly it was the beautiful blues.


A female mako shark, about 4 feet in length, swims near the surface offshore of Rhode Island/New York. (Photo: Brian Skerry)

We always dreamed of seeing makos, as these animals had almost legendary status as one of the fastest and most powerful species of shark in the sea. Wes had a vanity license plate on his old Volvo that said “ISURUS” which is the scientific name for makos and even used to sign his hand-written letters to me "Clear Water & Mighty Makos, Wes." As we sailed offshore on every trip we inevitably would talk about how maybe this was the day. And each day Greg Skomal religiously predicted a four o'clock mako but as 4 p.m. rolled around, the elusive fish rarely materialized. In all the years I made these shark dives, I think I saw two makos and both stayed near the boat for only a few seconds.

In the years since then my work has taken me around the globe photographing sharks in countries worldwide. I have longed to get back to my home waters, but being in the field on assignment nearly eight months each year left little time for shark diving in New England. A couple of years ago, I was contacted by an underwater videographer named Joe Romeiro from Rhode Island. I had seen Joe's shark films and they were beautiful. He had a true artist's eye and his films were respectful of animals and brought viewers into their world for an intimate view. Joe was doing a fair bit of shark diving locally and invited me to join him, but as usual, my schedule simply never permitted me to do so. But finally last week, the day after I made my last blog post ("Thinking About Sharks"), I went diving again for sharks in New England.

Joe had told me he was having great luck with not only blue sharks but with makos. I was amazed to hear this given the few sightings I had all those years. But Joe had been doing his homework and was especially tuned in to these animals. And he was also putting in the time it takes to learn. So off I went to spend two days off the coast of Rhode Island ... and low and behold ... I saw three mako sharks. Incredible! The first one showed up on day one about 45-minutes after we stopped the boat. I was blown away!



Two of the Makos stayed with us for a little while, one sticking around for several minutes. I got in the water and was able to have some wonderful close encounters. The shark was a small female and was stunningly beautiful. Her coloring was bold and vivid and she didn't appear to have a scratch on her. She moved with speed and with power, exuding the supremacy she clearly knew she had in the sea. I fired a few frames on my camera trying desperately to make sure exposure was correct and composition was good. Before my heart could stop racing, she was gone and I was climbing back on board the boat.

Like those diving days decades ago I was exhilarated and so happy to be back in these wonderfully cool waters with awe-inspiring animals. I am certain that much of our success had everything to do with Joe's expertise, but I would also like to think that perhaps mako sharks are doing a little better, that their numbers might be slightly increasing. I'll have to talk with some of my researcher friends like Greg to see if data exists. In the meantime, I'm looking forward to my next shark dive. And for now, I'll borrow a little from Wes and just sign off ...

Clear Waters & Mighty Makos,
Brian