Bringing the Zoo to You: Dolphins

Hi everyone! Welcome to another Bringing the Zoo to You here at Brookfield Zoo. My name is Heather and I'm one of the Senior Animal Care Specialists here at Seven Seas and one of the animals that we take care of are bottlenose dolphins. Now if you didn't know, March is Dolphin Awareness Month, so we really try to raise awareness about these amazing animals, how awesome they are, and what threats they face so that people, even in the Chicagoland area, can do things to help. So we're going to be hanging out with one of our dolphins, Noelani. She's 18 years old, so let's get to meet her. Here's Noelani. Noelani, can you wave to everyone at home? Good job, Noelani. So I have known Noelani for about 10 years now, and over that time we built a really strong relationship with one another, which is the key for how we care for these amazing animals. So we have a variety of different reinforcers like tactile. Dolphins are really social animals and they seem to like being touched in different areas of their body, including even a nice little tongue tickle. Noelani likes tongue tickles. So that strong relationship allows us to focus on our number one priority, which is giving them excellent care and a really high level of welfare. And we work together to do that. So Noelani actually knows a variety of care behaviors. She participates in her own health care. So we're going to give you an inside look at some of those health care behaviors. Now, why don't we just go ahead and start with the most important care behavior? So you can see I just gave her a small cue and she gave me her tail fluke. So this doesn't look like one of those big, splashy, exciting behaviors that you might see in Dolphins in Action. But this, to me, is one of the coolest things that the dolphins know, because it's how we take a voluntary blood sample. So just like when you go to the doctor and they ask you for the inside of your arm, there's a blood vessel that runs the length of the dolphin's tail flukes on either side. I'm pointing it out for you. And that is how we take a voluntary blood sample. So you can see I'm just making sure she doesn't float away. She trusts me enough to be in this position and to take a sample if I need to. And she is actively participating in her own health care right now, practicing this blood draw behavior. So when she's successful, she gets something that she enjoys, like, of course, some fish, maybe a back rub. Or even one of her favorite enrichment items. So we have a whole room full of enrichment for these amazing animals to make sure that they have lots of fun activities. And that's one of Nolani's favorite things. So she's going to take a victory lap for a job well done and go and play with one of her favorite toys. So as she's swimming, you can actually see her dorsal fin really well. So that is one of the ways that you can identify the dolphins, because each dorsal fin is unique, kind of like a fingerprint. Looks like she sees someone in one of the back parts of the habitat. So Nolani's dorsal fin is really wide and triangular, and it also has a wavy edge on the back, kind of like a lasagna noodle. That's what we like to use as an analogy. So there's a great look. Good job, Nolani. Now, that's not the only health care behavior that she knows. I can also access different parts of her body to give her an overall exam, like her belly or her sides and her back, and just give her a full body checkup. So when the veterinarians come, really she'll let them look at any part of her body. So one of the most important layouts is actually this right here. So we call it a layout because she's just laying at the surface of the water on her side. And this is actually how we could do an ultrasound exam. So Nolani's 18. She was born before I started working here, but most of the staff, a lot of the staff actually saw her on ultrasound when Topeka was pregnant with her and then saw her born. So this is a really important behavior for checking on the health of pregnancies, which in dolphins last around 12 months, but also for our non-pregnant animals or male animals. It's really important to get a checkup of their internal organs, things like their hearts, livers and lungs. And this is a great way to do that. So Nolani just lies calmly and relaxed at the surface and our vets can bring their portable ultrasound machine and again, just give her an exam. And she does this all voluntarily, all with her cooperation because of that really strong bond that we have formed with one another. So another care exam behavior is that I can ask her to see her beautiful eyes so you can get an up close look. Dolphins have special adaptations that allow them to see really well, both above and below the surface of the water and even through the surface of the water. So we can use this position to make sure her eyes are clear and bright and we can even look at her cute little ear, which is right here behind her eye. Now, dolphins don't have external pinnae or ear flaps like we do, because number one, that would look really funny. Yeah, it would. But number two, everything about Nolani is sleek and streamlined so that she can be fast in the water. So no external ears for her. No. We can also give her a dental exam, check on her teeth, her gums and her tongue and she'll just open her mouth for that. So we're basically dolphin dental hygienists as well. Yeah, good job, Nolani. So these are just a variety of those care behaviors that really show our strong relationship because Nolani doesn't have to participate. She's choosing to. And I think that's really a good testament to the relationship that we have with these animals and how much amazing care that we want to provide them. So we can see how we weigh the dolphins, if you'd like. So we're going to move a little bit. So we do have a scale that we place up on the deck. You can't weigh a dolphin in the water, that wouldn't work out very well, but we can ask them to beach themselves onto that scale. And then they pose really pretty, which looks great, but it's actually so they get all of their body out of the water so that we can get an accurate weight. And just for fun, we might have a little dance party while we're doing it. Good job, Nolani. Now, you could hear Nolani was making some vocalizations while she was pretending to weigh herself. Those are all coming from the blowhole at the top of her head. Dolphins don't have vocal cords. It's not coming from their mouth or their throat. All of that is by manipulating air sacs and that lip of skin over her blowhole. So we can see. You might even see the blowhole moving as she goes by. All right. So these are just some of the sounds that she can make. And we can even get a respiratory sample for the veterinarians as well by asking her to breathe on cue. So we can get a sample cup and ask her to breathe into that cup and look at it in the laboratory to make sure that she is healthy. Now, another really cool thing that we do here at Brookfield Zoo is we are one of the leading institutions of the Cetacean Welfare Project, which is a comprehensive study of dolphin well-being that has been at over 44 different zoos and aquariums in over seven countries. So this right here is called an NTAG, and it's basically a dolphin fitness tracker that Nolani can wear voluntarily to be able to track her activity throughout the day. So it can tell how deep she's diving, how many miles a day she is swimming, or even how she's moving her body throughout the day. So it's just suction cups on her back. It's specially designed for dolphins to wear, and she wears it voluntarily throughout the day to help us do real-time science and check out her welfare. Now, they also use these cool fitness trackers or activity trackers in Sarasota Bay, Florida, with wild dolphins when we do our wild dolphin health assessments. And I actually got to go and help with that and see these cool little devices deployed on dolphins out in the ocean. And it was really special to use my skills that I've gained caring for dolphins here at Seven Seas to help wild dolphin populations, which is really what Dolphin Awareness Month is all about. It's about raising awareness and caring for these cool animals so that we protect them in their habitats. And guess what? If we protect dolphins, we protect other amazing animals like fish, manatees. And even sharks as well, just by default, because they live in the same place. Nalani does a great shark impression. Now, another great way that we care for these amazing animals is to make sure that their bodies are active and we get their muscles moving and their hearts pumping. So do you want to see some exercise behaviors that she does? Nalani is great at exercising. Let's see if she can walk on water. Now, that just shows off how strong these amazing animals are. And how adapted they are to their watery environment. So let's see if she can show us a really cool behavior called a breach. They're going to check right out there in the front Cobra wall. Here she comes. So scientists think that that loud splash is one of the ways that dolphins communicate over far distances. Yeah, it was fun. And you can see Nalani seems to enjoy being active and she's super smart. So each of these new behaviors that she learns are like a puzzle for her brain to figure out as well. And she is a very smart dolphin. She seems to really enjoy learning new things. Well, thank you so much for hanging out with us for Dolphin Awareness Month. Nalani is going to wave goodbye with her tail flukes. Bye, Nalani. Now, we hope that you enjoyed your time with us here at Seven Seas, and we hope to see you in person eventually. Whether you come here to Brookfield Zoo or if you can't, if you live too far away and you're unable to come, we do have a lot of online resources. If you follow us on social media, look for more Facebook Lives to learn about these animals or go to our website, czs.org. And there's a lot of cool resources there about these animals and about how we're conserving their wild counterparts. And there's even some information about the Sarasota Bay Dolphin Research Project as well. All right, Nalani, give yourself a round of applause. Thank you all. We hope to see you soon.