During the 90-minute tour, you’ll cruise the intracoastal waterways looking for wild dolphins, birds and other marine life. One of the best ways to get a feel of the Clearwater area is by take the aquarium’s Sea Life Safari boat tour. Other animals you can see at the aquarium include otters, stingrays, sharks, pelicans and even an eel! Baby turtles hatched and ready for the ocean! Getting to know Clearwater’s wildlife If you’re in the area, check with the aquarium to see if you can be notified of any scheduled releases. Those late nights are some that I will never forget. length, weight, number of eggs in nest, etc.). Sea turtle hatchlings instinctively go towards the moonlight, so any light from condos, hotels, resorts, or houses within a mile interfere with that instinct – hatchlings can often find themselves in roads or parking lots instead of the ocean!ĭuring my time volunteering with the aquarium, I had the opportunity to watch a few nests hatch, and help the aquarium staff with taking scientific measurements (e.g. Opening in 1972 on Clearwater Beach, the aquarium is most famous for Winter, one of their resident dolphins. One of Clearwater Marine Aquarium’s resident turtles Turtle hatchings at Clearwater BeachĪ few months later, hatchings will start on the local beaches and lights will (hopefully!) be dimmed across the coastlines to help the new babies find their way to the sea. The Clearwater Marine Aquarium is a small non-profit organization and aquarium. To help protect these amazing creatures, aquarium staff and volunteers patrol the beaches every early-morning, looking for tracks of females who had made their way to shore to lay hundreds of eggs at a time. Clearwater Beach, and Clearwater Marine Aquarium Take first right exit. Sea turtle season here in Florida is roughly April through September. on-site The shore is never far from view at the Dolphin Retreat Book Now 89. The intention is always to return them to the wild, and if that’s not possible, they’ll call the aquarium home, too. The aquarium staff care for these turtles and also countless others who have been rescued after having been injured by boats or natural elements. The lovely dolphins being cared for at the Aquarium Clearwater Aquarium’s sea turtle rescuesĪ few sea turtles live permanently at the aquarium due to afflictions that prevent them from being returned to the ocean. In addition to rehabilitating marine mammals like Winter who have been injured or stranded on local beaches, the aquarium works with other marine life in the same way.
Clearwater marine aquarium dolphins movie#
She’s the dolphin who starred in the movie Dolphin Tale, and sports a prosthetic tail.īut Clearwater Aquarium isn’t just a movie set. “Getting to do research at a facility I consider home feels fantastic.If you have kids, or watch movies, you probably know about Winter the Dolphin, who lives at the Clearwater Marine Aquarium on Florida’s Gulf Coast.
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I met about a dozen animal care specialists who went to Eckerd College over the years, and my mom jokes that I chose my college when I was 8,” Hailey remembered. For my 12th birthday my mom brought me down to the Clearwater Marine Aquarium, and I’ve been hooked ever since. Hailey’s glad to be a part of a project that puts her one step closer to her dream of becoming an animal trainer. The animal has been identified as a rough-toothed. Until then, Frick’s team will continue studying Rex and Rudy through the summer and will conclude this research project in two years, Frick explained. Clearwater Marine Aquarium responded to a live stranded dolphin yesterday on Sand Key Beach, Florida.
Clearwater marine aquarium dolphins full#
These large mammals are intelligent, playful, and full of their own individual personalities Where to See Ruth & J.O. “Two of our bottlenose dolphins are also hard of hearing, so it would be wonderful if down the line we could do a study to find out how they sustained the hearing loss that made it impossible for them to survive in the wild.” Dolphins - Clearwater Marine Aquarium Experience Rescued Animals Dolphins Universally loved, dolphins are our best-known animals.
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“We have seven dolphins in total, two rough-toothed and five bottlenose,” Curry said. Two animals is a small sample size for a behavioral analysis such as this, both Frick and Curry explained, but because only two facilities in the country have access to rough-toothed dolphins, any new information gained from Rex and Rudy will deepen the knowledge of the entire scientific community.
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“It is showing us how they might be using touch to communicate.” They will use their two pectoral fins on the sides of their bodies to touch one another,” Frick said. Frick said her student team began monitoring Rex and Rudy in February and have already learned a little about the animals-who had been deemed unreleasable because hearing loss had halted their ability to echolocate, a skill dolphins use to communicate, hunt and stay with their pods.