MARINE EXPLORATION

Grab a coffee folks – this is a long one!  With lots of photos.
So….the cost of a day at Busch Gardens is $88 USD per person. Then they charge you another $40 USD per person for any of the good tours. You can’t bring your own food or drink into the park.  I’m sure it is worth it, but having just visited the amazing Sunken Gardens, we went in search of alternatives to Busch’s Safari Tour. We found the Clearwater Marine Aquarium and Mote Marine Laboratory and Aquarium and did both for less money.

Clearwater Marine Aquarium
This is a rescue facility. They take orphaned and rescued marine animals, treat, rehabilitate and, if possible, release them back into the ocean. They have some animals that can not be released due to their injuries, conditions or being raised in captivity because they were orphaned. These animals are provided with a safe environment to live out their lives, educate the public and provide research opportunities to further the care and recover of others.  One dramatic example of this was Winter – an injured dolphin fitted with a prosthetic tail fin to help her swim more normally. There are also sea turtles, pelicans, sharks, and stingrays. Presentations throughout the day at the various massive tanks told their stories and talked about the animals’ habitats, behaviours, and threats. Truly admirable facility. 
A highlight of our visit to this aquarium was the educational and fun playtime with Rudolph and Rex. These are 2 juvenile rough-toothed dolphins that were rescued from being stranded on Sanibel Island and brought to the centre in critical condition. Upon recover, it was discovered that both dolphins were deaf – one completely and the other mostly. As dolphins rely heavily on echolocation for food, this meant they could not be released and survive.  We learned that dolphins LOVE to play, can distinguish shape and colour and respond heartily to physical affection.  Only positive reinforcement is used in training and they always have a choice about doing what they want at the centre. Clearly they enjoy the attention as both were very obliging in showing us their impressive skills.
We also did Clearwater’s Sea Life Safari Tour. The sea life was a little scarce this particular day, but a short net drag produced a lizard fish, sea urchin, sand perch, sea star and squid. We saw lots of birds – a female osprey returned to its nest atop a channel marker, lots of the local brown pelican that we learned can scoop up to 3 gallons of water in its pouch when fishing!  We also saw a bevy of herons, egrets, sea gulls, plovers and other sea birds on Bird Island. This is a little sand island preserve sitting off shore that you can be fined heavily for setting foot on.   
Oddly, Clearwater also has an assortment of motion-activated animatronic dinosaurs. I thought at first that this was to provide information on marine dinosaurs, but the big land ones are there as well.  Not sure what this is about – perhaps to provide another point of interest against the competing attractions. And it is interesting! Each dinosaur display has a story and some information about the animal.

 Mote Marine Laboratory and Aquarium
WOW!  Right up there with the rocket launch.

Founded in 1955 by Dr. Eugenie Clark, who was fascinated with sharks and began research on this misunderstood animal, the centre grew to be a world-class presentation centre and facility. The displays of marine life were engaging and teeming with interesting facts and information told at a layman’s level. In addition to this, Mote is a research facility with a focus on sustaining, protecting and rejuvenating critical marine environments.

A host of educated volunteers are present throughout the centre to provide information on the marine life displayed.  We met an alligator in the best way possible – with protective glass between us – and watched river otters at play. We learned that:

• The female seahorse deposits up to 1500 eggs into the pouch of the male. He carries the eggs to maturity and ejects the juvenile seahorses into the water when ready. Seahorses are poor swimmers and wrap their tails around stationary objects to hide from predators.
• All sea turtle populations are either threatened or endangered from over-hunting in the early 1900s or by habitat destruction.
• The Heteroconger eel buries its tail in the sand and waves about looking like sea grass on the bottom of the ocean. It was quite funny to see them withdrawing and poking up again as we watched.
• The Peacock Mantis Shrimp’s beauty belies its behaviour. They have one of the fastest movements in the animal kingdom, which is to punch with their front appendages to kill and break apart prey. I don’t know what kind of glass they had in front of this laddie, but it must have been strong, because this shrimp can punch through a regular aquarium wall.  The volunteer said he is usually very shy, but he came out to have a look at me and even turned around a bit later to show us his peacock tail.
• A variety of sharks were there in a massive aquarium. Dr. Clark was the first to discover and prove that sharks are not the mindless, aggressive killing machines that is the popular believe, but that they can learn, respond to positive reinforcement and can make choices.
• We learned that the Terrapin turtle is not technically a turtle because it doesn’t form a “taxonomic unit”, meaning that its shell is not attached to its body with a spine and ribs as larger turtles are.

I could go on and on, but instead, I suggest you visit the site and discover some of the species and go marine-life-story-finding.  Or better yet – visit the centre!  😊
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Ironically, following our visit to the marine centre, we went across to The Old Salty Dog restaurant and had a basket of peel-and-eat and deep-fried shrimp and fries. Like Billy’s Rock Crab the other day, this restaurant is worth the stop if you are in the area.