This is a Steller Sea Lion named Tag that the Vancouver Aquarium had up until 4 months ago when he died. It was labeled a "training session" which is really taking liberties with the word "training". Question for Jim: what is the open hand down bridge I see used to lay the bull down at his feet? I have always seen a finger pointed down, and drawn back used. I assumed bridges were pretty standard? You will note his apprehensive/nervous nature that Jim Alexander noted when a group of keepers come up to the pen. Even though they still had fish and were feeding him he didn't want to come up as he had been doing earlier with the one individual. Neat animal.
Courtesy of Joey
Another question for Jim Alexander(no offense to anybody, but you will note where I go for "specific questions". I have a pretty clear understanding of the term "expert", cute and charming be damned. ) LOL Why do they call offspring of sea lions "pups", instead of calves if the males and females are referred to as bull's and cow's?
Friday, November 28, 2008
Steller Sea Lion at the Vancouver Aquarium
Posted by
Wade G. Burck
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5 comments:
1. Cues or discrimative stimuli (how 'bout that)do vary quite bit among facilities. My guess is that pinnipeds are normally trained and maintained at one facility for their entire life, unlike many horses or elephants. There has never been a time when sea lions often went from trainer to trainer and/or show to show on a regular basis. Whatever you wanted to do for a way to describe the desired behavior to the animal was OK. You could point, use a flat hand, or pull on your ear. If the animal would properly respond, good enough. Granted, some cues would be easier for the animal to follow than others.
I'm talking about a one trainer with one animal relationship. A big operation like the Sea World Parks with three parks and many trainers no doubt have standard cues to avoid confusion on everyone's part. However, Sea World cues might not look like Seaquarium or Marineland of Canada cues.
2. Good one. Sea lions are most closely related to bears but they aren't called boars and sows. The bulls and cows for sea lions probably comes from old marine mammal terminology (whaling). Whales are bulls, cows, and calves. I guess baby pinnipeds looked more like pups -- but they could have been called cubs. Maybe if they were native to the Ozarks we be calling them young'ns.
(My wife says long ago I was cute and charming. 40 years later I'm acceptable and occasionally pleasant.)
Jim,
Thank you. "Discriminative stimuli!!!!" How by God creative can one profession hope to get. Each time you think they have reached a peak, they push the envelope and come up with a new word puzzle.
I know you love the little darlings, but honestly do they look like a puppy to you? Speaking of their intelligence, how bright does an animal with no feet or useful hands need to be to look high and low for a sloped slippery surface in which to breed and raise their young, and spend half of their existence scratching and clawing to keep from rolling/sliding back into the water? Lucky for them they can at least balance a ball on their nose, as long as peddling a bike is out.
Wade
Jim A.,
Great information on another subject I know nothing about but think they are so dang adorable I could just hug n squeeze them.
Do they get aggressive?
Might be another good thing to know before I squeeze. LOL
Joey,
They can be nice animals and IF they know you're going to squeeze them and they've been squeezed before with positive reinforcement everyone will be happy. Basically what you're dealing with are bears with funny feet.
Hmmmmmm.Bears huh...
Somehow the desire to squeeze was just removed from my bucket list.
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