HEATHER URQUHART'S BACKGROUND
"I have always known that I wanted to work with animals. Early on I wasn't sure how, whether it would be veterinarian work or as a zookeeper. The career opportunities I was aware of then for working with animals were limited. After I saw Jacques Cousteau, I knew I wanted to work with marine animals. I've always been an ocean buff; I grew up at the ocean. When I was a kid, I was always the one without a suntan. I always had my mask and snorkel on.
"I got a B.S. degree in biology with a concentration in marine biology and a chemistry minor at Salem State College in 1985. Before I got my job here, I thought for sure I'd be going on for a master's, but once you get involved with your work doing some-thing that you love, it's hard to break away to go back to school.
"Growing up in this area, I was always aware of the aquarium and what was going on. When I started school in Salem, which is very close to the city, I found out through friends at school about the aquarium's volunteer opportunities. While I was still in college, I volunteered here for six months, two days a week in 1984, coincidentally in the area in which I am now working, with the penguins. Also at the time we had river otters that we took care of. I was able to group all my classes on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, so I could volunteer on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
"Once I graduated in 1985, I had a couple of other jobs-I worked with an environmental consulting firm for six months and did some quality control work with seafood - but was constantly applying whenever a position came open here. I'd scan the newspapers and then send my resume in. It took a little while, but finally they brought me in for an interview, and based on the good recommendations I had received as a volunteer and my interview I got hired. That was in 1989 and I've been here ever since. I started as an aquarist-in-training, then to aquarist, then to my current title, senior aquarist. I am in the Fishes Department. Even though I work with the penguins, they are classified under the fish department."
HEATHER URQUHART'S RESPONSIBILITIES
"I take care of both the Giant Ocean Tank and the penguin colony. I dive into the tank up to five times a day in order to feed and examine and check on the health of the fish as well as clean and maintain the exhibit. We have five dives going a day, so if we have enough people in we'll rotate, so sometimes we don't have to go in every day.
"The penguin exhibit has a 150,000-gallon tank and we need seven staff people to maintain both exhibits, plus we have volunteers to help us seven days a week. We have forty-seven penguins right now. We don't have to dive in the penguin exhibit, but we do have to put on a wet suit to get in there. We are in fifty-five degree water up to our chest. There are days you just don't feel like getting wet, but you just grin and bear it. If one of us is ill with a bad cold or the flu, then we try to accommodate each other, but even then I've gone in. There was no choice. The fish have to be fed.
"It's a very physical job and it's not for everyone. Not only because you're in the water, but just the nature of putting on dive equipment and chugging down the hall to get into the tank, then pulling yourself out. Then, there's going up and down four flights of stairs in order to get to the penguin exhibit with fifteen pounds of fish in a bucket in each hand. There is an elevator, but it's a big freight elevator, and by the time you get yourself in there and down, it's just easier to take the stairs. Besides that you need a key to open the elevator, and when you're in a wet suit in saltwater, you don't want to be carrying around metal keys. They corrode.
"Lately my concentration has been with the penguins more. We don't do any training with the penguins, we want people to see them as they would be in the wild. We do have some penguins, though, that have been partially hand-raised, and they tend to be more accustomed to human interaction. These penguins we can take out and do what we call an animal interview. They are put in an enclosure outside of the exhibit where visitors, without touching the animal, can still get an up-close and personal look. Some of our staff members will speak about the animal and give a presentation. Although they aren't trained per se, these animals don't mind being in the spotlight. It's a joy to work with them.
"I enjoy the animal interactions the most, it's some of the best medicine going. No matter what kind of aggravating day you might be having, when you are working with the animals, it all seems not to matter so much.
"I've been here for quite a while and I've hand-raised a lot of little penguins, and that's a wonderful experience-to be there from the egg to the adult stage. They imprint on you and they know my voice and will come to me. We have them all banded, but I can recognize who's who. Once the hand-raised penguins mature a little and become interested in a mate, they tend to ignore us more. We are no longer as interesting to them.
"We keep a genealogy on all our penguins and we keep food records and medical records and records of molting patterns. We also monitor their mating patterns to prevent inbreeding. If we notice two that would make a bad pair, we separate them and encourage each of them to breed with a penguin that would be a better match. In the wild you don't have that problem, but here we have to be careful. And with this particular species we have to be careful because their numbers are so vulnerable in the wild right now.
"In addition to maintaining the exhibit, I've been lucky enough to form a conservation program surrounding our penguins. We house two species of penguins, rock hopper and the African penguin. The African penguins are on the verge of becoming an endangered species in the wild. Through the help of the aquarium, we've been able to set up a fund and generate monies here through a penny-smasher machine. It costs 51 cents-we keep the 50 cents and the penny goes under a barrel that has the imprint of an African penguin on it. The penny gets smooshed with the logo on it and the kids get a souvenir. In the past two years I've been to South Africa twice and intend to go again soon. We link up with conservation organizations there and join them on their conservation and research work, trying to contribute as much as we can, as well as bringing back the most factual data to the States to educate people about the penguins' plight. We are also educating ourselves. We want to be more than talking heads who have never been in the field. We also contribute to penguin rehabilitation organizations that are helping oiled penguins in South Africa. We have great hopes for the future-we are really moving and shaking with this thing. The past two years have been wonderful, a real windfall for me.
"We do a lot of local travel up and down the East Coast for collecting fish and invertebrates for our exhibits. We also run a collecting trip twice a year down to the Bahamas to collect for our Caribbean Reef exhibit. But we don't have to collect that much because we are pretty good at maintaining the exhibit.
"We have sharks in our Caribbean exhibit that we dive with, but they probably are what I worry about least in there. They are docile and they don't pay much attention to us. I think people have a lot of misconceptions about sharks. People aren't on a shark's menu, and a lot of times attacks are the result of mistaken identity. In our tank we have some fish that are only about an inch or an inch and a half long, yet they are much more aggressive than any shark. Little damsel fish protecting their nests will come right out at you, for example. I've been bitten by damsel fish on numerous occasions. We get our share of bites, not only from the fish, but from the penguins, too. They aren't trying to be mean, but you're down there feeding them and handling them, and they aren't tame animals. Most of the time it's our own mistake. You're feeding a little piece of shrimp to a fish and they miss the shrimp and get your finger. They don't take your finger off, but you get little nips and bites. Nothing serious. Probably the Stranding Department has to worry more getting bitten by a seal they are trying to rescue who is sick."
A WORD OF ADVICE
"Volunteer, volunteer, volunteer. That's the best bet. Not only will the people who work at the institution get to know your work, but you'll get an idea of what you'd be getting into, too.
'The glamorous part is that you get to work with a lot of cute baby animals. But the non-glamorous part is all that other stuff of being in a wet suit all day long in cold water and smelling like fish by the end of the day. Ninety percent of working with animals is cleaning up after them. It's not for everyone.
"But if it is for you, then volunteering is the way to go. The vast majority of the people working here formerly volunteered here. We do pull from within our ranks.
"Also, make sure you go to school, but don't specialize too much early on. For the type of job I have, you'd need to have a biology or zoology degree, one of these general topics. Then if you get to do some volunteer work, you can see more clearly what area to focus on. You might decide you want to work in a lab or in education."
