Dinner for 1,200

From the desk of Richard Brown, General Curator

When you think of feeding an aquarium, most people think of feeding their fishes at home flake food. But at a public aquarium, like the Flint RiverQuarium, the food requirements of the various species on display are extremely diverse. Though the nutritional requirements of many species are similar, there is also quite a bit that needs to be taken into account.

Larger Fish

Larger fish need a variety of cut food. This is kept in the “walk-in” freezer in the food prep area. Salmon and mackerel can be filleted and chopped. Smelt, silversides, capelin, and squid can be fed whole. The Blue Hole typically gets a bucket full of fish or squid with chopped fish at the bottom for the smaller species like bream. Also, we add a couple of medium cups of pellet food that is especially purchased for the sturgeon.

Smaller Fish

Smaller fish get chopped food like smelt, silversides, superba krill, and Pacifica krill. The smallest fish, like the cave tetras, get flake food and pellet food. Seahorses get mysids and live Paleamonetes shrimp. It has been found that the seahorses need the calcium and vitamins in these types of food to thrive.

Mollusks

Octopus and cuttlefish sometimes take frozen food, but often have to be trained to take it as they are used to live food in the wild. When raising them from babies, they have to be feed live mysids and then slowly weaned away from them. This is an expensive food and has to be flown in from facilities in Florida and Louisiana who produce or collect them.

Many snails, including murex, oyster drills and moon snails  are carnivorous. These will eat thawed fish chunks.

Amphibians

Our amphibians, both frogs and salamanders, eat live crickets and worms.

Reptiles

Our turtles eat turtle pellets and cut food, but the gopher tortoises receive specially made house salads.

Lizards get live crickets with calcium dust and pinhead crickets for smaller animals.

Larger alligators usually dine on thawed mackerel and chicken hindquarters. The smaller gators prefer thawed fish.

Snakes eat their food whole and enjoy frozen rats and mice thawed in warm water.

Birds

Perching birds eat a variety of seeds, salads, live mealworms and crickets.

The Suncoast Seabird Sanctuary found that there has to be Thread herring in the diets of shore birds for them to survive long-term in captivity. This entails feeding some out whole for the large shorebirds, like the Great Blue Heron, and filleting some for the smaller shorebirds, like the Ibis and the Yellow-crowned Night-Herons. Also, we provide beef, which comes in sausage chubs, for the herons and egrets. This replaces small rodents, amphibians and reptiles that they would eat in the wild.

Food Enrichment

Calcium is dusted onto crickets to prevent calcium deficiency in reptiles and amphibians.

Vitamins are added to the fish once a week for the Blue Hole to help prevent goiter and other vitamin deficiency diseases. We also use Nekton, S vitamin powder put in gel capsules. We do this ourselves, putting about 30 vitamins into the thread herring once or twice a week.

Great Blue Heron Close Call Rescue

From the desk of Melissa Martin, Education Manager

Recently on a cool morning, I was doing some bird watching at Lake Loretta with my Birding Partner, Roy Brown, when I noticed something unusual about a Great Blue Heron that I spotted nearby. It appeared to be unable to move from its location. Upon closer inspection using our binoculars, we observed that this bird was indeed stuck, unable to fly and more specifically caught on fishing line.

I contacted Amanda, our aviculturist, while Roy dashed to his truck to grab some equipment that might be useful for a bird rescue. Amanda and Kelly, our senior aquarist, both came to the location of the trapped bird. Kelly caught and held the bird while Roy cut and untangled the fishing line.  This bird lived to see another day and surprisingly with no serious injuries, only a bruise to its right leg. There was another bird Roy and I spotted near that same location on another day that wasn’t so lucky.

Unfortunately, left-behind fishing lines and nets are culprits of many unnecessary bird deaths. If you fish, please remember to take your fishing line with you after you catch “the big one.” I am partial to the “Leave No Trace” philosophy when it comes to litter. “Leave no trace. Leave only footprints and take only photographs.”

We Love Our Volunteers!

From the desk of Vicki Churchman, Member and Volunteer Services Manager

It is Saturday at the Flint RiverQuarium, one of our busiest days. Wonder what the volunteers are up to?

Let’s check in with animal husbandry first. Cara is cutting up silversides and thawing out krill for the animals in food prep. There are also veggies to prep for the reptiles and crickets for the salamanders. Once Cara has thawed and cut the food she will begin working her way through the aquarium feeding each of the tanks their specialized diet.

Christina is helping with aviary husbandry prepping berries and fish for the birds. The birds get picky and sometimes don’t like the fish that are served to them. Some of the birds will actually toss the disliked fish to the side! But they all LOVE the meal worms!

Austin is probably just arriving in the aviary to help with the doors and visit with the guests about the birds. Austin has recently started in the Aviary, but he is interested in animal husbandry as well and will eventually be trained in caring for the birds.

Since it is Saturday morning, we are fortunate to have two exhibit explainers here. Matthew and Morgan have been learning about the exhibits and animals so that they can interpret the exhibits for guests and answer questions. Personally, I think this is one of the most enjoyable volunteer assignments. You get to meet lots of different people and learn fun facts about the animals. Today Morgan and Matthew might meet a young family visiting from Tifton, Columbus, or even another country.  

 

Courtney should be in the gift shop for the morning helping our guests purchase items and restocking. There is a birthday party this morning and everyone attending the party will get a coupon for a special discount in the gift shop. There are plush albino alligators, aquatic themed toys and wonderful children’s animal books to choose from. She will also go over to the theater frequently to help with concession purchases while the Theater staff is starting the movie.

Around noon Ian and Patrick should be heading in. They’ll find our turtle costume and spend a few hours entertaining our youngest visitors. Most children love to see Flint come for a visit, but occasionally some of the smallest children are a little frightened.

At 1:30 two of our volunteer divers will come in and dive into the Blue Hole! At 175,000 gallons, the Blue Hole tank is our largest tank and is filled with 30 to 40 pound fish: bass, catfish and sturgeon. This fish know the divers are there to feed them and have even been known to snatch a bag of food from the divers! Our guests really enjoy seeing the divers interact with the fish, each other and even the guests.

           

Meet Big Bertha

From the desk of Kelly Putnam, Aquarist

Stop by our current changing exhibit, Alien Attack: Target Everglades, to see our  Burmese Python, Big Bertha, aka B.B.. While she is 10 feet long and weighs in at about 70 pounds, Burmese pythons can reach lengths of 23 feet long or more, weigh up to 200–plus pounds and have a girth as big as a telephone pole. They are among the four largest snakes in the world, which also include the Green Anaconda, Reticulated Python, and African Rock Python.

In the wild, Burmese Pythons usually eat birds and small mammals, although sometimes they will eat other reptiles including snakes and lizards. Our Python, B.B., eats very large rats that are shipped to us frozen then thawed out and warmed up. Because she is such a large snake we only feed her every other week. She is most active at feeding time. As soon as she is offered the rat, she strikes and grabs hold, quickly coiling around it and squeezing just like she would if it were live prey. After she feels she has "killed" her rat she proceeds to swallow it whole.

Burmese pythons are native to the jungles and grassy areas in Southeast Asia. Now, however, they have become an invasive species throughout most of Florida, because they have escaped from or been released from captivity. Because Burmese pythons are so readily available in pet stores, they are a popular pet snake. Unfortunately many people do not do enough research and purchase a hatching Burmese python, not realizing that they grow an average of six inches a month or six-seven feet per year. So not only does their need for space quickly increase, so does the cost of feeding them. This is why so many pet owners have simply released their large snakes into the wild, not realizing that by doing so they are putting animals into an eco-system where they do not belong.

Archae: The thief in the aviary

This post comes from the desk of Vicki Churchman, Member and Volunteer Services Coordinator 

One thing about working at a non-profit, there is no such thing as regular hours. You work when needed. This particular weekend I was needed Sunday afternoon. I had come in to work to help with an event and Discovery Days. Discovery Days are our Sunday activities for elementary aged children. You can find more about them here: http://www.flintriverquarium.com/discoverydays.html. I enjoy occasionally coming in on the weekend and having an excuse not to be locked up in my office. I can get into the RiverQuarium and see and talk to our guests. Sometimes they teach me and sometimes I teach them.

This Sunday I decided to stop by the aviary. It is one of my favorite places! When the weather is nice, it is calming and the birds each have their own personalities. Normally, when I enter the aviary, I check my earrings and remove them if they are French wires – you will see why in just a moment. I forgot that day, however,  AND I was wearing a pair of handmade glass calla lilies on French wires. Amanda, our aviculturist, was busy feeding the birds and we chatted for a moment – the baby ducks were turning into adolescents and she had just returned from a trip to Pensacola to help with the birds that were affected by the Guld oil spill. We had lots to talk about!

Archae, our resident blu jay, flew down and landed on my wrist to investigate my pen. Archae was raised by a person from a young age and doesn’t know he is a blue jay. Either that or he doesn’t know people aren’t blue jays. I am not sure which it is. He likes shiny things - cell phones, pens and generally anything new. He is also a thief. I knew this. I have heard stories about his thievery. But I blithely chatted away with Amanda as Archea finished investigating my pen, hopped to my shoulder and pecked on my necklace. Suddenly Amanda’s eyes got big and she said ‘Vicki, he’s got your earring!’ as Archae flew away to his hiding place!

Sure enough, Archae had stealthily pulled my earring right out of my ear and flown away with it! He landed not far away and put it down and watched us. Amanda went after my earring, but he picked it up and flew to a new spot and again dropped the earring and watched Amanda, who hurried after him again. THIS time he flew to the other side of the aviary and sat on a low branch, dropping the earring just below the branch. This bird was taunting us! Amanda valiantly ran to the other side of the aviary and this time she scooped my earring up before Archae could grab it! VICTORY!! Archae was not at all happy with this turn of events and began scolding Amanda and me as we left the aviary. Nowadays I am even more vigilant about my jewelry when I enter the aviary. I swear Archae remembers me because the other day I took off a pair of earrings as I entered the aviary and he flew over and began trying to open my hand to steal my earrings!

Next time you visit the Cypress Pond Aviary, secure your jewelry, keychains and pens and say hello to Archae. He’s the Blue Jay looking for shiny things……

A-birding we will go!

On this blog we hope to let you get to know all of us here at the Flint RiverQuarium a little better. This post come from the desk of Melissa Martin, Flint RiverQuarium Education Manager.

Well, for those of you that don’t know, I am an avid bird watcher. I am pretty much going to be out observing these beautiful creatures anytime I can. I had an opportunity recently to travel to Eufaula National Wildlife Refuge on the Georgia side. My birding partner and I were there to catch a glimpse of a specific bird, the rare Lincoln’s Sparrow. I had never seen one before, so I wanted to add it to my life list. It had just been found there a few days earlier. We waited and waited. Patience is definitely a virtue in birdwatching! We waited for at least 2 hours beginning half an hour before sun-up. Finally, success! This shy sparrow showed itself with its very subtle coloration and fine streaking that sets it apart from other sparrows. We got good looks, snapped some photos and were off to our next birding adventure!

Welcome!

Welcome to the new Flint RiverQuarium blog! Follow us here to get the scoop on behind-the-scenes happenings and day-to-day operations of the FRQ. It takes a lot of folks with different skills, talents and experience to run an aquarium, and on this blog you will hear from lots of them. From our curatorial staff that work directly with the animals to our dedicated volunteers that choose to spend their time with us, there are lots of stories just waiting to be told here at the Flint RiverQuarium. So, follow us here to get the latest!