I went to visit Circo Vasques yesterday which is playing about 40 miles from Circo Atayde(Aguilar) and they had a young hippo which did the standard cheesy "act" in the show and was also used for photo's along with a llama, below. Circo Atayde(Aguilar) use's three "units" for photo's at intermission. Jorge's sea lions seen above, as well as a Bactrian camel and a tiger cub. Jorge is a good, good trainer and he and I have become fast friends. He often watches practice in the morning and comments on how amazing it is that my training methods are so similar to the training of sea mammals, sans a whistle, which I attribute to all the years spent at Marineland in Canada. Earlier Jorge permitted to use one of his sea lion pedestals for a tiger that was reluctant to get on a tall pedestal. His pair of sea lions as I mentioned earlier are from a sanctuary. The smaller one was attacked in the wild by as Jorge speculates, "either a shark or a killer whale. She has some horrendous old scar's on her lower stomach and back, as well as a deformed lower spine from the attack. Both well trained individuals and the larger one is the only animal I have ever seen that "begs" to do something. She volunteers behaviors in an effort to get a fish and Jorge's attention. LOL 
Monday, July 11, 2011
For Richard Reynolds--Photo Op's
Posted by
Wade G. Burck
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2 comments:
The sea lions are Patagonians which tend to be a little calmer than California sea lions. When excited they just stop instead of biting and running (but not always). I remember the first time I saw Marco Peter's sea lion operation at a Sport Show in St. Louis. He had brought Popescu's two older female Patagonians. His show was very good, entertaining and educational. After the show he was doing photos - something I hadn't seen. People would walk up to the sea lions, they'd put a flipper or lay their head on the customer - one after another. My wife just stayed watching in amazement and waiting for the first snap - didn't happen. Marco's continued to do photos, now with some young Californians - so far so good. Just another thing we didn't think animals would do.
Jim,
Funny you should mention about picture taking. The larger one in the picture can't wait to lay the lip's on someone, impatiently looking over her shoulder if the next one is not right up there. If the folks are too long in coming she starts bobbing up and down in agitation/apprehension. She reaches back place's a "kiss" on their cheek and kind of "pulls" them into place. When she is cued to stop, she could care less if they dropped dead, because now she is all about the fish/reward. It would be great to sit and cut up jackpot's with you and Jorge. He is a very knowledgeable man and funny as hell. He speaks decent English and in fact I have had to "call him in" to square a couple of beef's for me, due to "misunderstandings". LOL
Wade
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