Happy Birthday, Beau!

Beau, one of the National Aquarium’s male dolphins, is turning 7 years old today!

Beau smiling at this morning’s birthday fish feeding

Beau with mom Nani, on his first day of life

During one of today’s enrichment sessions in Dolphin Discovery, we’ll be creating a big birthday card for Beau, made out of a shower curtain. The trainers also have some special birthday enrichment toys for him and a nice, tasty fishcicle—his favorite!

Beau, at one week old

Guests can stop by the birthday pledge station anytime today to leave their birthday wishes for Beau, and pledge to help his friends in the wild.

Beau’s 1st birthday

If you can’t make it to the National Aquarium, Baltimore, today, leave your birthday wishes for Beau in the comments section below!

Animal Updates – May 25

Between our Baltimore and Washington, DC, venues, more than 17,500 animals representing 900 species call the National Aquarium home. There are constant changes, additions, and more going on behind the scenes that our guests may not notice during their visit. We want to share these fun updates with our community so we’re bringing them to you in our weekly Animal Update posts!

Check our blog every Friday to find out what’s going on… here’s what’s new this week!

Seahorses, Seahorses, Seahorses

We’ve added 15 seahorses to our newly renovated Moving: Saltwater exhibit!

 Although the animals in the tank often look different, all are longsnout seahorses. The seahorses have different color variations, much like human hair color!

Atlantic Shelf 

We’ve re-opened our Atlantic Shelf exhibit within the Maryland: Mountains to the Sea gallery!

Permit

In this tank, we’ve added four permit, two pinfish, one gag grouper, two tautag and two flounder.

Flounder

Dolphins 

For the past two weeks, we’ve been monitoring our dolphin family following a health concern with one of our males. We’re happy to report that the steady incline of Beau, and the entire colony, has continued. All of the dolphins are eating on their own and are regularly participating in activities and playtime. Our animal care staff is continuing to monitor each dolphin carefully. You can read our previous dolphin update here.

As the recovery continues, we are planning a more regular schedule of Dolphin Discovery interactions. Our primary focus is excellence in animal care so our planning will adjust, as necessary, to ensure the health of our dolphin colony. We cannot thank our guests and online community enough for your loyal support and understanding during this time.

Please note that future posts will be focused on other animals. We will always provide additional updates when we have something new and noteworthy happening with our dolphins.

Be sure to check back every Friday to find out what’s happening!

Animal Updates – May 18

Between our Baltimore and Washington, DC, venues, more than 17,500 animals representing 900 species call the National Aquarium home. There are constant changes, additions, and more going on behind the scenes that our guests may not notice during their visit. We want to share these fun updates with our community so we’re bringing them to you in our weekly Animal Update posts!

Check our WATERlog blog every Friday to find out what’s going on… here’s what’s new this week!

Dolphin Update

For the past several days, we have been monitoring our dolphin family following a health concern with Beau. We’re very happy to report that he’s doing much better today!

What first concerned us with Beau was a change in his appetite. To keep our dolphins healthy and happy, we feed them a specific amount of food every day. When they show a lack of interest in this food it is often the first sign of a problem or illness. Our animals’ wellbeing is our primary concern so when this happened, our staff and trainers immediately began to closely monitor Beau’s diet and vitals 24 hours a day. Although Beau was assist fed during this time, our staff continued to encourage him to eat on his own.

After a few days, Beau’s health concern started affecting others in our dolphin family. For a short time, Foster, our other male dolphin and Beau’s close buddy, started to mimic Beau’s symptoms. Aquarium staff has also become concerned with Jade and is watching her carefully.

Today, we’re happy to report significant improvements – Beau and Foster are both eating on their own. They are active, playful and their general demeanor has improved.

We want to thank everyone for their support and understanding during this time. Although we have no way of knowing the timeline of this situation, we look forward to a continued and speedy recovery.

About Beau
Name meaning: Beau also means “Handsome”. This name was chosen to go with his mother Nani’s name, which means “Beautiful” in Hawaiian.
Sex: Male
Weight: 350 pounds
Birthday: June 27, 2005, at the National Aquarium
Family Tree: Son of Nani (dam) and Bob (sire)
How to Recognize: Guests can recognize Beau by his skinnier rostrum, consistent gray coloration of entire lower jaw and crooked teeth in lower jaw
Trainer’s Note: Beau is best buddies with Foster and is often playing with and chasing him.

Be sure to check back every Friday to find out what’s happening!

Atlantic bottlenose dolphins pay yearly visit to Maryland!

In late July, our Marine Animal Rescue Program (MARP) held Maryland’s annual dolphin count event. This is just one of many activities MARP participates in throughout the year, in addition to rescuing and rehabilitating animals.

The National Aquarium is one of several East Coast organizations that participates in this annual dolphin count. These counts allow marine specialists and researchers to gather a “snapshot” view of the population status of the Atlantic bottlenose dolphin.

On July 22, our Marine Animal Rescue team, along with members of our Conservation Team and several volunteers, gathered in Ocean City, MD. Record heat index temperatures could not stop them from a date with the beach and dolphin watching!

Teams stationed at four separate locations, including Assateague, 40th & 130th Street Ocean City, and on the Ocean City Coast Guard Vessel. From land, our staff and volunteers spotted more than 130 dolphins, some of which were neonates and young of the year.

Surprisingly, there are no marine mammals indigenous to Maryland. Rather, many species are spotted traveling through our area at various times of the year. We have learned that bottlenose dolphins use Maryland waters as a thoroughfare for migration, summertime breeding, and feeding along their travels. The most prevalent bottlenose dolphin populations are visible in the month of July, when the water temperatures hover around the mid-70s.

Checking in with the dolphins

The National Aquarium’s dolphin colony is a dynamic, close-knit group that is made up of mostly mothers! Nani, Chesapeake and Jade are mothers to three of our young dolphins. Nani gave birth to Beau in 2005, and Foster was born to Jade in 2007. Bayley was born to Chesapeake in 2008 and she will be 3 years old tomorrow!

Spirit and Maya were also born here at the Aquarium in 2001, and this is the first year they produced calves. In late June, we shared the sad news of the loss of these two dolphin calves. The loss of the calves proved to be upsetting and stressful not only for the staff, but also for the dolphins themselves.

From years of working with these animals, we know that dolphins are very social animals. When something of this nature disrupts the group, the animals get upset. In this case, the moms were distressed, which in turn created stress in the entire colony. Social changes can be very upsetting for every dolphin in the group.

The health and welfare of all of our animals is of first importance. In the weeks following the loss of the calves, staff decided that the best thing to do for the dolphins was to discontinue shows and other programs until our Animal Health team and trainers are satisfied that normal social behaviors have returned.