Work
In case ya didn't know I'm a marine biologist! And to answer your question, NO I DONT WORK WITH DOLPHINS! But I do get to do cool things like work with strange animals, collect fish, go on trips to touch whales, scuba dive, etc. I work down at a marine aquarium in southern California and I used to run the Outreach program where we would travel to different schools to visit kids. My program saw about 32,000 kids a year and traveled about a 60 mile radius around my aquarium. We did both private and public schools and saw mostly students aged preK through the 8th grade. I finally finished up the website for my division , its at: http://oceanoutreach.tripod.com. The Aquarium is a really cool place to work too, I started out there part time and was fortunate to end up working there full time, I'm really really lucky. Heck you don't find too many terrestrial biologists working marine biology! Now if you were paying attention you'd notice that I said I USED to run the Outreach Division. That's because in August 2004 I was lucky enough to interview and transfer over to the Aquaria Division! Now my job is a lot more simple, I collect and care for the animals INSIDE the aquarium! Being an aquarist has it's perks, there's no other job where I can get paid to fish and dive! I loved Outreach, but after almost 15 years it was time for a switch and I had always wanted to be an aquarist. So after time off for good behavior I was paroled from Outreach and sentenced to life as an aquarist!
Check out the WILD SEAHORSE I caught in a super secret spot. It's our first staff caught one
and I named him Earl, after my favorite program "My Name is Earl"
A sea turtle pen in the sea of cortez.
Looky at these moray eels trying to get me!
Behold the "Crab Cab" the second newest of my vans, I just added a third van "Octobus 3" right before I left Outreach.
See any sharks around?? That's me on the far right, Jeff (Chief Aquarist) in the middle and Matt on the left, we're diving in Catalina on the Catalina Above and Below trip for our work!
This is a sand castle contest in Seal Beach, Team Cabrillo has won two years in a row for our division!
Behold the School Bus and Octobus I, two of the Outreach vans I oufitted and set up.
Most of the former Outreach Team. From left to right, spooky, nen, maudi, oak, goof, special d, and jynx. It's sad but all of these guys don't even work Outreach anymore! Except for spooky, he's now the head of Outreach Division! With any luck he'll be paroled too!
SHH, be vewwy vewwy quiet! See that huge elephant seal behind me, its a giant male about 12 feet long and the little ones are babies or females. This happened on a really cool trip to San Ignacio lagoon in Baja where I got to touch some baby gray whales. Of course I didn't get any cool pix of that.
Ewww, isn't that nasty? This is a stinky hagfish trying to bite me. They are really gross and can secrete buckets of slime all over the place!
A big octopus trying to kill me through the glass. I barely ecsaped with my life I tell ya!