The National Aquarium in Baltimore is located in Baltimore, Maryland. It is an AZA-accredited facility that is home to many fish, mammals, birds and reptiles! As the marine mammal intern at the aquarium, I work only with the 8 Atlantic bottlenose dolphins that live there in the Dolphin Discovery Exhibit. It's an open exhibit, meaning that you can come in at any time during the day and hang out in the amphitheater to watch the dolphins. There are many scheduled training sessions throughout the day as well as some unscheduled enrichment sessions and extra training sessions.
There are six female and two male dolphins at the aquarium. Nani, Jade, Spirit, Maya, Chesapeake, and Bayley are the six females and Beau and Foster are the two males. Most of the dolphins are related to one another and six of the eight were actually born in the aquarium! Nani is the mom to Spirit and Beau. Chesapeake, who was the first dolphin born at the aquarium, is mom to Bayley and is Maya's half-sister. Foster is Jade's son.
The trainers at the aquarium spend a large portion of their day training the dolphins. They teach them new behaviors, practice behaviors, have play time, do enrichment sessions, have husbandry sessions, and much, much more. There is also a lot of cleaning and record-keeping that goes on behind the scenes.
The National Aquarium is definitely a great place to visit if you are ever in Baltimore and the Dolphin Encounter exhibit is a fantastic area to spend some time with some really awesome dolphins! If you have any more questions or need any more information about the aquarium, check out http://www.aqua.org/.
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