New employee orientation at Monterey Bay Aquarium

#Monterey #Nature #Marine

Saying hi to Tino the giant pacific octopus (still young)
Employee perk: being able to see the kelp forest with no people around (before we open!

Keep your nudibranchs close and your anemones closer

#Marine #Puns

The northern anchovy ‘yawns’ as it eats because it’s opening its mouth and eating everything
I got to squish a moon jelly

I think I’ll keep updating this thread to share the joy I see whenever I am onsite (which is going to be, often, coz I need this)

I learned that the jellies have circular tanks because.. they get stuck in corners

Top view of an actual shark tank
We don’t have corn holes. We have coral hole
The view on my walk to work when I’m down there

Sticking my phone through the holes of a fence. And finding a (I think) Brandt’s cormorant colony

#Birding

Kind of unfair that a random photo out of the railings has birds and otters in it
I get to sea the open sea exhibit before we open! A sure way to know we haven’t opened is there are bubbles in the water

The Monterey bay aquarium stands on the grounds of a former sardine cannery. Due to overfishing, the sardine population collapsed. When I heard about this I thought of the Silicon Valley office parks 50 miles north, engaged in modern extractive exploitation without ever giving back.

The recovery of the bay, the work of the aquarium and the marine national park status has completely changed the environment

Attending a staff-only internal guitar concert in the open sea exhibit this morning

You can watch some live cams here (of the animals, not the concert)

https://www.montereybayaquarium.org/animals/live-cams

Meeting in the kelp forest (we are closed today for a staff only event)
There really was a guitar concert in front of the sea nettles this morning
An exhibit that shows what a ‘whale fall’ looks like
Slow shutter speed / low light photo of a lump fish

Move over, JK ‘TERFY’ Rowling.

Here’s ’Hairy Otter’, written by (probably) JK Owl

My friends are asking if I’m involved in any of the fun social media and I’m like nope but I love that team and I’m trying to meet all of them

(Monterey Bay is the GOAT: Greatest Ocean of all Time)

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DCZ-RrjIwQy/?igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

Monterey Bay Aquarium on Instagram: "Feeling super amped up that we got Executive Director, Julie Packard, and Chief Conservation and Science Officer, Margaret Spring joining the trend to tell you all about the based things at our Aquarium. They truly were the moment💅✨🌊 #MontereyBayAquarium #TheyDeliveredLikeAQueen #GenZWroteTheScriptMillennialsGoogledTheTerms"

7,381 likes, 111 comments - montereybayaquarium on November 15, 2024: "Feeling super amped up that we got Executive Director, Julie Packard, and Chief Conservation and Science Officer, Margaret Spring joining the trend to tell you all about the based things at our Aquarium. They truly were the moment💅✨🌊 #MontereyBayAquarium #TheyDeliveredLikeAQueen #GenZWroteTheScriptMillennialsGoogledTheTerms".

Instagram

The otter people didn’t let me take my phone to the behind the scenes otter feeding, but promised to send me photos after so

#Marine #Mammals #Otters #OttersOfMastodon #OttersOfTheFediverse

I have an octopus scarf!

At work they got us to head out to connect with the ocean. Honestly can’t believe I get to be here

Also not lost on me that this very beach was yet another Chinese settlement that was destroyed by ‘fire’ in 1906

Someone made a whale
I made a dumpling
View from a room where I’m having a 3 day training program
View from my last day of training
Someone just told me ‘California sheephead transition from female to male, AND conjure a sphere of mucus to protect them when they sleep’
Maybe it shows I spend a lot of time looking at jellyfish but I got in this morning and was like NEW JELLY
Pacific sardines
Adrianna Tan (@skinnylatte@hachyderm.io)

Attached: 2 images It’s hard to leave work sometimes! #Photography #Monterey #California

Hachyderm.io

I went for a walk at lunch

#Monterey #MontereyBayAquarium #Kelp

I met some of my coworkers
I love going to see the jellies
A coworker showed me her anglerfish plush toy
Many of my days in Monterey kick off here. It’s the coffee spot near work I tend to have breakfast meetings at, and also the mid point stop on my bike ride there.
Some days I feel like I’m in a John Steinbeck novel
More jelly
@skinnylatte love the composition and the detail in this pic! Thanks for sharing it!

@skinnylatte

They are so 'Not of this World'!
Love them, even if they can sting one to death…

@skinnylatte From the thumbnail, I saw Randal from Monsters Inc!
@skinnylatte omg I love this! I really like anglerfishes. Did your coworker make this herself or did she get it somewhere?
@geraineon hehe it was a gift so I’m sure you can buy it
@skinnylatte I used to go to the aquarium a lot when I was little and this is the room that has left the biggest impression on me by far, I still remember what the fonts on the walls look like
@skinnylatte I love these pics. We’ve been there, as a family, five or six times and we love it there. These bring back great memories.
@skinnylatte Here’s our daughter at the Aquarium in 2005. She’s 21 now.
@Ronnie haha the clam is so cool
@skinnylatte 😂 Our son in the same clam in 2003. He’s 26 now.
@Ronnie all happy as clams!
@skinnylatte Nothing happier than clams.
@skinnylatte One last clam pic and I’ll stop. 😂 The same daughter in 2016.
@Ronnie I wonder if the clam is still around! I haven’t seen it
@skinnylatte I don’t know if it is or not. The last time we were there it was. That was 2016.
@Ronnie we have incredible live streams now. Check out the otter feeding at 1.30pm PT daily. all streams on the website! Enjoy!
@skinnylatte I think my favorite exhibits there have always been the jelly fish. They are just amazing.

@Ronnie if you ever come back, I recommend the into the deep exhibit. They have some fantastic deep sea jellies never before seen. Like the bloody belly comb jelly

https://www.montereybayaquarium.org/animals/animals-a-to-z/bloodybelly-comb-jelly

@skinnylatte I was just thinking how this conversation is making me want to go back. That’s a beautiful jellyfish.
@Ronnie you should! Let me know if you do ;) there’s going to be a new marine sanctuary further south, called Chumash, in consultation with the Indigenous folks out there.
@skinnylatte Oh my gosh! Apple Photos must be following this conversation because this just popped up in my memories! This is my daughter as a jelly for Halloween.
@skinnylatte Yes but did you *shout* "NEW JELLY!"
@skinnylatte I love your posts about your new job so much
@b0rk @skinnylatte Yes. It's just so pleasing to see someone having a great and exciting time right now.
@GeePawHill @b0rk @skinnylatte +1, thanks for letting us live vicariously 😄

@GeePawHill @b0rk @skinnylatte

The photography is accurate and awe inspiring, too. I'm a fan of the skilled image captures. It's such a great thing to see in the post stream.

@skinnylatte are you training to be a fish?
@skinnylatte I love how the remnants of the canning industry that nearly destroyed the Bay have now become residences for wildlife.
@skinnylatte love that the alt text specifically mentions the species. Sign of working with people deeply concerned about non human species?
@ab haha i was into birds before marine mammals
@skinnylatte wow! This job seems to be an ever better match than it already felt ❤️
You're really making many of us jealous
@skinnylatte Looks like the cormorants are having a meeting of their own. “I called this meeting to talk about the fish.”
@skinnylatte @petes_bread_eqn_xls I wonder what those birds were thinking?
×
Saying hi to Tino the giant pacific octopus (still young)
Employee perk: being able to see the kelp forest with no people around (before we open!

Keep your nudibranchs close and your anemones closer

#Marine #Puns

The northern anchovy ‘yawns’ as it eats because it’s opening its mouth and eating everything
I got to squish a moon jelly

I think I’ll keep updating this thread to share the joy I see whenever I am onsite (which is going to be, often, coz I need this)

I learned that the jellies have circular tanks because.. they get stuck in corners

Top view of an actual shark tank
We don’t have corn holes. We have coral hole
The view on my walk to work when I’m down there

Sticking my phone through the holes of a fence. And finding a (I think) Brandt’s cormorant colony

#Birding

Kind of unfair that a random photo out of the railings has birds and otters in it
I get to sea the open sea exhibit before we open! A sure way to know we haven’t opened is there are bubbles in the water

The Monterey bay aquarium stands on the grounds of a former sardine cannery. Due to overfishing, the sardine population collapsed. When I heard about this I thought of the Silicon Valley office parks 50 miles north, engaged in modern extractive exploitation without ever giving back.

The recovery of the bay, the work of the aquarium and the marine national park status has completely changed the environment

Attending a staff-only internal guitar concert in the open sea exhibit this morning

You can watch some live cams here (of the animals, not the concert)

https://www.montereybayaquarium.org/animals/live-cams

Meeting in the kelp forest (we are closed today for a staff only event)
@skinnylatte your feed is giving me big MBAQ withdrawal symptoms; we haven't been in about a year and I'm super missing it rn. keep posting pics!
@skinnylatte The Monterey Bay YouTube video streams helped me get through the pandemic lock down.
@lisagetspolitik amazing! I’ve heard so many people say that.

@skinnylatte

For some elder color - I was at Pacific Grove Middle School when the aquarium was built. Before it, cannery row was all ruins - and it was sooooo cool down there. It was
a magical place for a kid to explore. Everyone got passes to the aquarium when it was built, and it was a treasure to have as an after school destination. One particular highlight was playing music for evening events there.

@grechaw I read that the hovden cannery guy wanted to build an aquarium in PG! He even got quotes for it but didn’t do it

@skinnylatte

Ok I looked it up because I was like wait the Aquarium IS in PG. It's right on the border with Monterey. And the building is the Hovden Cannery site. What I learned in looking though is it only closed in 1973! So those ruins in played in were not so old at all, just ruins of old buildings... That neighborhood was a glorious mess.

@skinnylatte perhaps a National Office Park Service to recover and restore old offices to a more natural habitat.
@skinnylatte why do the bubbles only run when the aquarium is closed?

@Champagne no one will be able to see the exhibit if the bubbles are there. They run over night I guess to oxygenate the water and remind the fish that there is a large glass there

The exhibit is supposed to evoke a sense that you are in the middle of the ocean. It’s very majestic

@skinnylatte so cute! like little kittens
@pagrus one of them is named Carl. I don’t know which one
@skinnylatte haha I don't know if the shark in the spiny lobster tank had a name but the biologist said she had the hardest time getting him to eat, it's like he'd just forget how
@skinnylatte well now I want a ‘pitch bucket’ full of chum

@skinnylatte cute!! ✨😍

I wonder if one of them would invest in this new business idea I have... 🤣

@skinnylatte ohhhh I remember that part. So so beautiful!
Didn't know about the corners thing :)
@skinnylatte @vapaad is it weird that i knew what aquarium this was based on the font used for the sign?
@jepyang @vapaad it does have very strong branding!
@skinnylatte ahhh yeah that was one of my jobs at cal academy too, we had to chop up moon jellies to feed to other moon jellies, I always felt a little weird about that. the room where they grew them out was very cool though
@pagrus Oooh I did not know that
@skinnylatte well, why were you squishing them up? I assumed that was the goal there, or was it strictly recreational
@pagrus I dunno, it was part of our orientation haha ‘everybody squish a moon jelly’
@pagrus we were supposed to describe what it felt like
@skinnylatte ahhhh ok got it. do the moon jellies get to describe what it feels like too
@skinnylatte When I worked across the street from the Aquarium I went to the jellies exhibit once a week or so at lunch just to stand there and calm down. (I don’t know if the full jellies exhibit is still there or not.)
@rednikki there are Black Sea nettles now. Those are my fave. And the deep sea bloody jellies that are so new they don’t have names
@skinnylatte I appreciate you doing this service for us
@skinnylatte your employee orientation is probably right up there in the top 1% in the planet.
@skinnylatte ngl, very frustrating that this is not a gif
@skinnylatte very cool. Were you trepidatious? I definitely was the first time I picked up a jellyfish, even after seeing other folks pick them up just fine
@brendonjustin they explained that this type literally could not sting us. So that helped. In any case, only squished the tops
@skinnylatte oh gosh that's dreamy
@skinnylatte
Watching this kelp is the most relaxing thing, even with screaming children around. What a great way to start the day.
@skinnylatte do you have meditation hours? ;-)

@skinnylatte
Fortunately, there's always the Monterey Bay Aquarium live kelp forest cam:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3LjpFhySTg

Live Kelp Forest Cam - Monterey Bay Aquarium

YouTube
@skinnylatte Can I put in a request for a mola pic?
@skinnylatte stretchy suckery friend!