Where am I working ?
I choose to work in Fjord&Bælt as a volunteer because first of all I've always wanted to take part in something that would make me feel closer to animals, whatever they are. With this volunteering project at Fjord&Bælt, I wanted to learn more about marine mammals (because I really didn't know that much about them before coming!), and of course participate to taking care of them with the training sessions and researches.
Fjord&Bælt is a marine education center which opened in 1997, created to combine research, public exhibition, aquariums, and education on marine issues. The Kerteminde Fjord, the Danish Belts, and their marine life are the common denominators for all the activities. Fjord&Bælt have approximately 15 full-time employees year round, not including the many interns and part time staff. The Research department consists of a team with 4 trainers, Danish and foreign interns assist in all the daily tasks.
The center is visited by approximately 60.000 guests each year. The harbor porpoises are the main focus of the research and are one of the main attractions. The harbor porpoise research aims to enhance knowledge of sensory systems and behavior and to investigate methods of reducing by catch. By having the porpoises at Fjord&Bælt we are also able to create awareness and educate the public about the harbor porpoise's plight in the wild. International research co-operation is currently carried out with institutions from many different countries.
The Fjord&Bælt is located in Kerteminde which is 20 km from Odense, the third Largest city in Denmark (200.000 inhabitants) on the island of Funen, and has a population of approx. 8,000. It is two hours via public transportation from Copenhagen, the Danish capital. Historically, Kerteminde is one of the last functioning fishing villages in Denmark and one of the larger tourist sites with its Old Danish architecture and attractive beaches.
© Google Maps Kerteminde city © marinas.com
What am I doing as a volunteer?
In the following pictures, you can see the outside of the centre. The picture on the right is the seals' pool. It has a ramp starting underwater to allow the seals to come up on land. The picture on the left shows the porpoises pool. There are bridges all around so the guests can easily see the animals.
Fjord&Bælt have approximately 15 full-time employees year round, not including the many interns and part-time staff. The research department consists of a team with 3 trainers: Mathilde, Julie and Signe. As an intern here, I have to do a lot of tasks, which are related to the daily routine. The following is an example of what I do in the morning !
First of all, I have to go to the kitchen -which is more or less the area where I spend much of the time, where all the fish is stored. Then, I can start sorting fish with the trainers and the other volunteers. There is lot of fish to sort because we have 5 animals and they need to eat a lot! The sorting can take 2 hours, because we have to be aware of doing it properly; we have to look after every fish to avoid bad ones (missing eyes, scratches on the back, parasites...)
In the following pictures, you can see the kitchen where we sort the fish every morning. As you can see, everything is cleaned carefully ! The picture on the left is the board to which we refer to know how many kilos of different fish our animals need. We also have baskets full of different items we can use for researches.
When the sorting is done, we can start filling with fish all the buckets for each animal. Every of them has their own weigh of capelins, sprats and herrings according to the amount of calories they need. And when the buckets are ready, we have to put a shape inside, so we can use it to call the animals for the feeding. Every of them has their own name shape, they have to recognize it and to come to the right bucket. And now, the feeding can start! At the beginning of my volunteering, I have to focus on watching the trainers doing the different feedings, but after an individual period of time, I can be able to start feeding the animals and of course learning how to maintain a few basic behaviours with them!
After the first feeding of the day, we have to clean all the things that we used during the fish sorting and also cleaning the animal’s buckets to fill them again for the next feeding. After that, we have to wash the whole kitchen (walls, windows, floor, sinks, fridges...) to let the area as clean as possible (you will not believe me how you can find fish scales everywhere!!). When it's done, we have to write some records in a data base regarding to the feeding with animals: if they had a good attention during the session, or maybe they were a little bit tense. If it is the case, it might be related either to a human activity near the harbour (large boat arriving or dockyard) or to a lack of hunger. In any case, it’s easy to give as much as details as we can so we will be able to compare data afterwards. I did not precise that of course, it takes a lot of times to get to know the animals, because each of them has a very different personalities and they may also react differently, depending on the behaviour's and their needs.
The rest of the day is based on preparing the buckets for the next feedings and cleaning one more time the kitchen. We also have a lot of different weather situations with both wind and water changes which can cause variations in the daily tasks and work routine. In the season where the centre is open to guests, it’s very important to help in giving them a great experience which means answering questions if they have some and guide them if they want to go somewhere.
The aim of this whole volunteering is to help the trainers but it is also to take care of the animals and to learn the basic rules of how to train animals. All we need is to make sure that all our animals are healthy and fine. One day per week, we have to weigh them, but also to take their measurements so we can adjust their feeding for the next times. And thanks to that, I'm now able to learn more and more about porpoises and seals, both about their biology, their anatomy and how they live in the wild. Fjord&Bælt's trainers do a lot of researches especially with the porpoise which is a real opportunity to get to know the species. For example, they study her diving response which is based in respiration where the animal is rendered apneic by underwater submersion. Every research biologists do are based on the animal volunteering which means that they are trained to participate but never forced to do it. If you want to know more informations about researches, I strongly encourage you to go to this link.
My working schedule at Fjord&Bælt is basically all week long, even the week end, since we have to be there for the animals. But working the week ends is only once per month so we can enjoy the next ones! The shifts are between 8:00 and 15:30 but it can last longer, depends on the things we have to do during the day.