You may not know that Leu the Northern fur seal LOVES to play catch (just like our sea lion ladies). It's a game he's been playing since he arrived 2012. I thought it would be fun to see if he could hone those tossing skills and play a friendly game of Frisbee with me.



In no time, he had a signature throw down! Even if it happens to fall, Leu will pick it up quickly and send it back to me. This has been in the works for just a few days —see how good he already is! He'll be ready for ultimate in no time...

Maybe Leu is dreaming of Frisbees

-Lindsay

Every spring our interactive program with the seals switches over from the winter program to an even more immersive activity called Take a Dip with the Marine Mammals. This popular program gives you a behind-the-scenes look at the marine mammal exhibits—either the harbor seal exhibit on the front plaza or the marine mammal center overlooking Boston Harbor with fur seals and sea lions—and lets you get in the water with the animals!

Billy Hoysgaard shared his video with us and we thought it would be a fantastic way to impress on our blog readers just how close you can get to the animals with this fantastic Aquarium experience! Here's his first-hand perspective.


Take a Dip with a harbor seal at the New England Aquarium by Billy Hoysgaard

As Billy experienced, visitors slide down to sit in the water and work side by side with a trainer. While the actual activities each visitor will do varies depending on the animal that day, participants will likely be able to feed, rub an animal's fur, deliver hand signals and maybe even get a kiss.

"I learned so much from the trainer Erin, and Lana the seal," Billy said. "Erin was really welcoming, warm, informative and knowledgable. Whether Lana was doing twirls or giving kisses, she was so well behaved...and beautiful! I loved feeding her, and working on a new 'hand holding' skill that Erin was teaching Lana."

Taking a Dip with the fur seals

These programs make great gifts for any animal lover—like Billy. "My girlfriend surprised me for my 32nd birthday with Take a Dip with Lana. She learned about it from a friend who had also done the Take a Dip program," Billy explained. "What made it even more special is once we arrived at the Aquarium, we learned that just days before, it was also Lana's 32nd birthday!" These programs are also a great opportunity to expand your knowledge of the Aquarium as well as marine mammals in the wild.

A seal smooches a participant in our Take a Dip with a harbor seal program

Reservations are required for these special programs. Call 617-973-5206 to book your Take a Dip program to find out what the animals eat, discover their unique personalities, favorite toys and each seal's special skills. And you'll walk away with new appreciation for these amazing marine mammals and wonderful memories of a truly unique experience.

As animal trainers, one of the most important things we do is build and nurture the relationships that we share with our animals. A great way to do this is through play! Not only does play allow us to build relationships, but it's also a great way to find out what our animals seem to enjoy or find reinforcing. One of the things our resident California sea lions seem to enjoy the most is any type of water play.


Watch the video below to get a behind-the-scenes peek at Zoe and Sierra as they enjoy playtime with a sprinkler that was set up for them by their trainers!



This isn't the first time we've featured the sea lions enjoying some fun under the spray. Watch the sea lions hosing off and having summertime fun in the water, too!

What's one of the best things about winter? Snow days of course!

Check out how Leu, a Northern fur seal, and California sea lions, Zoe and Sierra, spend their snow days. Here's Leu's version of a snowball fight.



Press play to see Zoe and Sierra get a taste of winter.




Snow has provided enrichment for our marine mammals before. Watch Ursula romp in the snow on the deck.

As you probably gathered from the video posted in this entry, our youngest fur seals—Flaherty and Leu—are best buddies. They play with each other all day long (when they're not napping, that is, puppies have to nap). The fur seal pups get into all sorts of activities, like running, swimming, playing king of the rock. Well... you'll see. Just check out our home movies.


On Fitness Fridays we like to point out ways our marine mammals are staying active. Running, swimming and playing are all parts of an active lifestyle, which is a key part of staying healthy. Here at the New Balance Foundation Marine Mammal Center, we start that healthy lifestyle young.

High five!

Newborn Flaherty from earlier this summer. He's much bigger now, but just as adorable!

Ursula has given birth to a pup! You can read the full press release here. This is the first video of mother and pup hanging out behind the scenes!



Note that the pair will not be visible to the public for a while so they can enjoy some bonding time together out of the exhibit.

As you all have already seen, Baranov can get pretty creative when it comes to back scratchin'. He has been cracking up YouTubers for a while now with the video of him scratching his back against the rocks in the exhibit.



Looks like he's found yet another way to reach that sweet spot on his own.


Baranov, he's just a well-groomed guy 

-Lindsay

Sierra is been perfecting some pretty amazing skills. We've seen her spin, dance and loaf around with her pal, Zoe. The trainers are constantly looking for new ways to keep these California sea lions active, in both mind and body.

In today's Fitness Friday post you can see a new activity that Sierra is working on: taking a stroll in a new part of the New Balance Foundation Marine Mammal Center.



This is not something that happens every day. Sierra can explore a new space a bit, and stretch her flippers some. You can see that we put up temporary stanchions to keep visitors at a safe distance, we didn't want to make our young explorer nervous! Erin, her trainer, was sure to reward Sierra for her bravery with lots of pieces of fish. Sierra did great during her quick little jaunt!


Whether you're a human or a sea lion, taking a walk with friends or family is, in fact, a great way to get moving. Try it yourself!

The California sea lions are eager learners, and they're picking up new skills regularly. Both Zoe and Sierra get some extra attention behind the scenes so they can work closely with their trainers. In this video, you can hear Zoe and her trainer working while Sierra perfects her belly spin. She's getting pretty good at it!



What do you think? Does that look like break dancing or what? In fact, dancing can be a good way to stay active. The harbor seals have already shown us how they can do some line dancing. Now get those toes a-tapping, it's almost the weekend after all!

Sierra wowing visitors in the New Balance Foundation Marine Mammal Center

Chacoda, the Atlantic harbor seal, has been practicing a special skill for a while. What do you think?



It's not unusual to seals at rest in this pose. It's called the banana posture—doesn't it kinda look like a curved banana? — and Chuck has been perfecting this for a while. Now that's a lot of crunches!



Seals in the wild also demonstrate this pose as on the Aquarium's Rescue Team blog.



This wild harbor seal appears to be resting based on the banana posture of its body.

From their daily training and exercise sessions, the Northern fur seals at the Aquarium have picked up some unusual skills. Take scooching, for example. Ursula is getting pretty good at this skill. She keeps her face and shoulders close to the ground while her hind flippers and hips are high in the air, pushing her right along. It's pretty funny to watch as Belinda walks her through the exercise!



With the New Year quickly approaching, many folks add exercise among their resolutions. Let the fur seals be your inspiration! What are some creative ways that people can zip about to stay active? Have you ever tried to crab walk? What about skipping? Let us know!

A very flexible Ursula

Check out our other New Balance Foundation Fitness Friday posts! Watch how Isaac managed to learn an impressive flipper stand, and see the sea lions romping with a hose for a bit of exercise.

Many folks work with physical trainers to help them reach their fitness goals. Well, Isaac has a trainer and a partner in fitness in Paul, one of our marine mammal trainers.
 
 Paul working with the fur seals

Isaac

In this week's Fitness Friday post, Paul walks the hulking Northern fur seal through a couple toe taps to stretch out.





Check out our other New Balance Foundation Fitness Friday posts! Watch how Isaac managed to learn an impressive flipper stand, and see the sea lions romping with a hose for a bit of exercise.

Just one of the ways a fur seal can get a good scratch!







Speaking of grooming, check out this classic post of Ursula grooming. My how far we've come, new exhibit, great new videos...

- Lindsay

Good news seal fans! The Aquarium's new Take a Dip with the Harbor Seals program is up and running. We posted about this fun opportunity earlier, but now we have a web page devoted to the program and we've made this video preview of what will happen when you come hang out with the seals.



Get program details and find out how to book here. We'll see you with the seals!

As you might have read in older posts, or seen first-hand during one of your trips to the Aquarium, we often do enrichment sessions throughout the day with our seals. These are outside of our regular training sessions and allow us to interact with the seals using different "puzzles" and toys.


Northern fur seal at the Aquarium
Photo: N. Lipski

We've recently been trying to brainstorm some new ways to enrich the seals, so we decided to bring back an old favorite - Jello! We set it up in a similar fashion to the ice piles (that you might have seen in Lindsay's post here). We filled different molds with unflavored gelatin, cut it up into small pieces to put in a pile, and even hid some pieces of smelt or squid in for an added bonus.

As you can see in the video below, Roxie really got into this, diving into the Jello piles like she was in a pie eating contest! Sometimes she even pushed the small pieces of fish away to get to larger pieces of Jello. Being one of our visually impaired animals, this is a really great way to do enrichment with her because she can use her vibrissae (whiskers) to search through the Jello to find the fish, or just to find bigger pieces of Jello to eat!



- Erin W.

Ah summer, when a young man's thoughts turn to, well, napping. Once breeding season is over, male Northern fur seals begin to molt. As they lose their old fur and acquire a new coat, their appetite decreases and they start to drop much of the extra 100 pounds or so that they gained in the spring. As many of us can attest, losing weight is hard work. Just check these guys out.






~ Jenny


Isaac

At the Fur Seal Exhibit, the morning routine is fast paced for the training staff. Between 8:00 and 9:30 am we: Prepare 150 pounds of fish and squid for the seals, collect exhibit water samples for analysis, start the laundry, get dive gear ready, start hosing the seal poop from the exhibit deck, SCUBA dive to scrub the exhibit floor, and start the vacuum for yet more seal poop. Phew.


Taz


Roxie

This video below shows Ursula resting while making a rarely heard clicking sound.



Roxie is up and has a lot to say in this video. To me, her first vocalization sounds like a honk while the third and fifth sound like she is saying "Hey". I guess we'll never know.



Finally, Erin helps JD wake up with an invigorating neck scratch.



- Jenny