Kris Rossing, a reader, is a Senior Aquarium Biologist at the Vancouver Aquarium, undoubtedly the best such facility (for both display and research) in Canada. Kris spends his time tending and studying endangered frogs (see a story here), and, when he heard I was coming to Vancouver, he kindly invited me to a behind-the-scenes look at the Aquarium, saying he’d try to wangle a Beluga Whale Encounter and a Sea Lion Encounter. How could I refuse?
Yesterday I made the hour-long trek from Richmond (site of the conference and hotel) to the Aquarium in Stanley Park, met Kris, saw the frogs and other stuff, and had my Marine Mammal Encounters. I’ll post about the latter today, and show more photos of frogs, snakes, and other sea creatures in the next day or so.
After a look at some rare and endangered frogs, Kris took me to the beluga whale tank and handed me over to one of the trainers/keepers, who made me don a waterproof vest-cum-life-jacket, and we entered the tank. After a call and a quick slap on the water with the keeper’s hand, and the young female whale came over. These whales are highly trained to respond to voice commands, hand commands, and whistles, which is useful for both petting them and doing a veterinary examination. Here I got to pet one; their skin feels taut and rubbery, like an inner tube. (All photos are by Kris).
Belugas (Delphinapterus leucas) are Arctic in distribution, are the only white whale, and the only species in the genus. They lack dorsal fins but have a bit of a hump on the back that is said to help it remain stable under the ice. here is their range in blue.
I got to feed it many fish and small octopuses. They don’t chew the small ones (herrings and the like) but swallow them whole.You simply drop the fish into the whale’s gaping maw:
Below is what you see when you feed a beluga. Unlike nearly all mammals, the teeth aren’t much differentiated—as you see below, they’re simple pegs.
I can’t remember how many fish each of these whales eats per day (there are 5-6 feedings each day), but the Aquarium goes through so much fish for its marine mammals that they have their own boat to fish for herring.
Here we’re feeling the head dome, or “melon” which the whale uses to echolocate. Sounds are emitted through the dome (which can change shape easily, as we saw), and are picked up through the lower jaw.
Here’s a diagram of the auditory system of the whale and an explanation from Wikipedia:
Like most toothed whales it has a compartment found at the centre of the forehead that contains an organ used for echolocation called a melon, which contains fatty tissue. The shape of the beluga’s head is unlike that of any other cetacean, as the melon is extremely bulbous, lobed, and visible as a large frontal prominence. Another distinctive characteristic it possesses is the melon is malleable; its shape is changed during the emission of sounds. The beluga is able to change the shape of its head by blowing air around its sinuses to focus the emitted sounds. This organ contains fatty acids, mainly isovaleric acid (60.1%) and long-chain branched acids (16.9%), a very different composition from its body fat, and which could play a role in its echolocation system.
The beluga has a very specialized sense of hearing and its auditory cortex is highly developed. It can hear sounds within the range of 1.2 kHz to 120 kHz, with the greatest sensitivity between 10 and 75 kHz,where the average hearing range for humans is 0.02 to 20 kHz.The majority of sounds are most probably received by the lower jaw and transmitted towards themiddle ear. In the toothed whales, the lower jawbone is broad with a cavity at its base, which projects towards the place where it joins the cranium. A fatty deposit inside this small cavity connects to the middle ear. Toothed whales also possess a small external auditory hole a few centimetres behind their eyes; each hole communicates with an external auditory conduit and aneardrum. It is not known if these organs are functional or simply vestigial.
Here’s a shot I took of the ear, which is certainly vestigial, although, as noted above, it may be slightly functional. It’s the very small indentation behind the eye (if you see the eye as the center of a clock, you’ll see the tiny opening, surrounded by a slight prominence, at lower left at about 8 o’clock).
I asked the trainer if the whale would recognize hand commands if I made them. The experiment worked:
I also had a “squirting experience”: they offered me a choice of getting pretty wet (whale spits water on you) or fully drenched (whale soaks you with a well-aimed slap of the tail). I chose the Moderate Drench, and I have a movie of it that I’ll post soon. The whales can also make about ten really cool sounds through their blowholes, and they can make a given sound on a given command (there’s also a “make a random sound” hand command, and a “make another random sound different from the previous one” command.) I filmed that and have audio.
Then it was time for the Sea Lion Encounter with Steller sea lions and fur seals (Fur seals are really sea lions, as they have external ears with flaps. Genuine seals don’t have external ears, but earholes.) The “pinnipeds” are an unranked clade that includes three families: the Odobenidae (walruses, only one living species), Otariidae, or sea lions, which include fur seals (15 species in all), and the Phocidae, or true seals (17 species).
The first pinniped I encountered was a female Steller sea lion (Eumetopias jubatus). They are highly trained in three ways: for examination (e.g., presenting bellies, teeth, tongue, flippers for vet inspection), for research (to enter chambers that measure their metabolism, carbon dioxide emission, etc.), and for play (standing on their front flippers, playing dead, etc.). Here’s a smallish female. I got to feed her many fish but in this photo she’s vocalizing (loudly!):
The range of the animal. Decline in numbers has been alarming lately, and they’re listed as either threatened or endangered depending on the population. This is likely due to reduction in their fish stocks, which could be caused by human depredation, climate change, or both:
But my favorite pinniped was the northern fur seal (Callorhinus ursinus; I met another female), a gorgeous, small creature with luxuriant fur and huge, liquid black eyes.
Here I am feeling her fur. It’s so thick that the undercoat doesn’t even get wet. They lie down for stroking on command. Only the sea otter is said to have more luxurious and thicker fur, but killing any of these animals to make coats should be a hanging offense!
Feeding the lady seal with herring. (The shaved patch on her back reflects experiments with Velcro-attached tags that were glued to the fur to see what kind of tags would work but not impede movement. The tags were removed and the fur will grow back when she molts soon.)
The range of the northern fur seal (dark blue dots are breeding colonies). The species was severely reduced by hunting (clubbing them to death!), but trade in these was severely restricted in 1911, representing the first international treaty trying to conserve any species. There is still a bit of hunting in northern Canada and Russia.
This was a wonderful moment. The keeper/trainer told me to sit very still, not touch the seal, and she would tell it to kiss me! Sure enough, she issued a hand-and-voice command, and the seal came up to me and nuzzled my face with hers— and I felt its whiskers! Being kissed by a fur seal has got to be one of the highlights of my life as a biologist:
Many, many thanks to Kris, to the trainers and keepers who took time out of their day to educate me and let me feed and play with the animals, and the other gracious people I met at the Vancouver Aquarium. I’ll have more pictures and movies to show soon, but if you’re in Stanley Park, Vancouver, you might drop by.
The Aquarium is one of the biggest tourist attractions in the city, and the part that regular visitors see is very well set up. I was highly impressed by the bond between keepers and animals, and their concern for their charges. 7 days a week, each animal gets fed and played with (or trained) 5 or 6 times a day. And the veterinary facilities are superb. I do have compunctions about keeping animals like belugas in small tanks, but I have to say that some of my opposition was tempered when I saw how much these people love their animals and how well they treat them. I noted, for instance, that every pinniped’s weight is checked constantly and is known to the keepers to the nearest kg. At any rate, let’s not debate that issue in the comments below.
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It is kind of amusing that the handler is assuming the classic approach/avoidance posture while Doctor Professor Coyne is leaning right in for a smooch.
Go Doc1
That’s interesting, because I believe human vocal sounds (not just what we can hear) reach down into the few hundred Hertz too. So presumably, the whale might not be able to hear James Earl Jones.
Gah! My apologies…’anonymous’ was me eric. This time it was definitely my user error.
This happened to me yesterday. What happened was that I had cleared my cookies and history from my browser as it was giving me trouble. Then I commented on something in WEIT, saw nothing, tried again. Nothing. Then I noticed of course that my name and email did not autofill. But one of those attempts to comment got posted later in the day.
Aww cute!
Wikipedia errs in saying its bulbous had from the ‘melon’ is unlike other cetaceans. The porpoises have similar bulging heads, Phocoenidae…
A terrific account of quite an adventure.
I was fortunate to be given a behind the scenes tour of some of the facilities at Sea World in San Diego many years ago. My encounters were mostly with the fish and penguins.
I an attest that the people who work back there are absolutely passionate about their work.
Can someone explain what Jerry means by pinnipeds being an unranked clade, but what is ranking in clades, and why are pinnipeds not this.
Clades is a concept I only encountered in this blog, not in biology class, so this in new to me.
It likely means that the group does not have a known branching order, giving an uncertainty called a ‘polytomy’. This shows a polytomy and it shows possible ways in which the branching order might be resolved with more information.
Thanks Mark, very helpful, I was going to ask the same question myself!
That’s actually not what it means. An unranked clade i simply a clade (i.e., a common ancestor and all its descendants) that doesn’t have a particular ranking in the traditional Linnaean system (i.e., order, family, genus, etc.). Saying that a clade is unranked simply implies that it is not part of the Linnaean system but does not imply that there is a polytomy among taxa within the clade.
I guess that’s a bit clear on this Wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinniped
Yep, exactly.
“Being kissed by a fur seal has got to be one of the highlights of my life as a biologist”
That is very touching.
And on the first date too!
And with a lady with a great mustache!
Looks like quite the experience! But no new “official website animals?” What gives? Surely the fur seal ranks as Official Website Pinniped?
Okay, if you say so!
What a wonderful experience!
This was moving, even just to read. Biophilia, which Prof Coyne clearly has in spades, is one of the best things (sometimes I feel it’s one of the few good things) about being human. Unfortunately, it has not prevented our predatory species from putting so many others, including a number of pinnipeds and other aquatic mammals, in danger of extinction.
Very cool, Jerry! Lucky you!
A friend of mine was in a museum in northern Vancouver Island (Port Hardy, I think).
In one glass case, they had a skull of a Stellar’s Sea Lion and right next to it, the skull of a grizzly bear (brown bear Ursus arctos spp.).
The remarkable ting about the two skulls was, according to my friend, who is quite well informed in science and marine biology in particular, is that they looked almost exactly the same.
Those Stellar’s Sea Lions are basically sea-going grizzly bears. He said they were incredibly intimidating to sea-kayak near, because they would swim out close to you, tower over you and bellow at you. And of course, they can swim circles around you and could swamp you and drown you in a heartbeat if they wanted to.
It makes one feel remarkable respect for the Native Americans who used to hunt such prey from human-powered, skin and frame boats (such as kayaks).
I can attest to this! A big bull appeared out of the murky water next to my kayak once and I nearly peed my pants. He just went on under us without pausing, but in that moment there was no doubt that we were his to kill or not as he chose.
I really envy you!
…and, if ever given the chance, it might be hard to keep me out of the water. Imagine playing water polo with sea lions!
b&
Wonderful!
Those are amazing pictures. Looks like a great experience!
Great story!
But still no baby tigers to cuddle… 🙁
It’s on the bucket list!
Wow, lucky man! One time I was fishing in Alaska off the shore and a couple Belugas swam by hunting the same coho salmon I was trying to catch. They are beautiful animals and obviously extremely intelligent.
Glad you enjoyed your visit, Jerry. We’re just across the Straight of Georgia in Nanaimo and don’t get to Canada much, but we have been to the aquarium. The sea otters are my favourites!
I’m happy for you PCC! Next stop, Panthera!
I don’t think we can promise you anything quite so exciting when you get to Toronto tomorrow. However, if you want an up close encounter with a raccoon, just find out which neighborhood is putting out its garbage that night.
PCC has already had that. Raccoon ended up in his bed!
Did you notice that the skin of the whale is very active. My experience with grey whales showed that they can make a depression in the skin to guide your hand to rub in the desired manner and scratch the right barnacles. I think that they can control flow separation with this array of muscles below the skin. Whales seem to look you right in the eye.
Interesting!
From the “open mouth” photo, it looks as if belugas have sublingual caruncles, where the submandibular ducts open in the floor of the mouth, much like humans have. So how much of the Moderate Drench was whale-gleek, vs. water from the enclosure? 😉
It was complete whale squirt from the mouth. I’ll put up a short video when I get back to Chicago.
Vancouver Aquarium was one of our favourite destinations when we lived in the greater Vancouver area for 13 years. Our daughters were young then, but they still remember their visits to see the orcas and dolphins. Now that our oldest daughter has moved back to Vancouver for studies we bought a family membership so that every time we visit her we can visit the aquarium.
Reblogged this on milanioliva/ olivera kovacevic jankovic.
You live a wonderful life, Jerry! So glad we can follow along vicariously.
Beautiful animals, and fascinating info about them.
Re. the fatty acid composition of the melon, what I remember from the Lipids section of General Biochemistry in grad school @ Rutgers, there are two sections in the melon, and these differ in lipid composition. It was thought that the different refractive indices of these two compartments afforded the possibility of focusing/directing sounds. I think that came from a question on an exam. That was one of the great aspects of that course – you continued to learn things while taking the exam. (This tidbit resurrected from 40yrs ago!)
Another question I remember from the Lipids exam began: “From avocado mesocarp (the part you eat)…”
I still remember a question about the structure of Juvenile Insect Hormone…
Just went looking for something on my old lipids professor, Carter Litchfield. I’m just adding this as proof that people can be passionate about lipids:
Exhibit A
ExhibitB; great pic on the header of this page, too.
That’s nice to see – proteins and amino acids get more attention it seems.
Er, nucleic acids.
What fun!
Great pictures.