For older students, a Dolphin Camp offers up-close opportunities with the Center’s dolphins, and an Angler Fishing camp for middle grades teaches basic fishing and net casting techniques. An Ocean Expo Summer Camp is held annually for students ages 5-17, highlighting different marine science topics weekly and offering field trip opportunities to South Mississippi barrier islands and aboard shrimp and pontoon boats. An overnight Dozing With Dolphins program is offered for student and scouting groups, including a behind-the-scenes tour opportunity, a film screening, and animal training presentations. In addition to public reserved tours, field trip opportunities are offered at the Center for elementary and secondary students, tailored to incorporate Mississippi curriculum standards. Young program participants must be accompanied by adults during animal interaction, and payment for all programs must be made at the time of reservation. Programs are also available for interactions with tropical birds and reptile species. During the summer months, a Dolphin Interaction program lets visitors ages 8 and up get directly in the water to swim with Center dolphins. A 180-seat auditorium also presents showings of films related to nature and marine mammal topics.Īnimal Adventure presentation programs are offered for tour participants, including year-round Dolphin Meet and Greet and Dolphin Encounter programs that allows visitors ages 5 and older to work with trainers and interact with the Center’s resident bottlenose dolphins, Apollo and Bo. A fossil dig exhibit allows young visitors to search for shark teeth, which may be kept as souvenirs. Discovery Room exhibits also offer observation of saltwater and freshwater fish, snakes, turtles, and invertebrates in aquarium habitats. A Discovery Room features touch pools for visitors to interact with sharks, stingrays, horseshoe and blue crabs, sea stars, and sea urchins. An interactive museum experience is offered at the Institute’s Center for Marine Education and Research, with 2,000 square feet of exhibits focusing on native Gulf Coast marine mammal species and biodiversity. "A lot of them are pretty thin.Tours of the Institute are open to the public on a reservation-only basis, offering tour experiences for adults, children, and educational groups and private organizations. "We're working on them gaining weight," Hoffland said. They have some cuts and scrapes, and the second-youngest had a sting ray spine stuck in his forehead, but they are in good health considering the circumstances, Hoffland said. But these social animals stuck together and survived. The dolphins may have moved because they encountered a predator or were otherwise spooked, said Tim Hoffland, director of training at the oceanarium.Īfter living in captivity, the dolphins were not used to hunting for their own food or fending for themselves. Rescuers searched for them for 48 hours before finding them 15 miles away near Biloxi. Now the dolphins from the Marine Life Oceanarium in Gulfport, Miss., are all swimming safely in a Navy pool.Īfter four of the dolphins were saved last week, the other four suddenly disappeared. After the dolphins were located, their trainers taught them how to beach themselves onto mats so they could be loaded onto a boat. 21, 2005 - All eight dolphins that were swept from their aquarium tank into the Gulf of Mexico by Hurricane Katrina have been rescued.
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