Joining us from her summer internship at SR3, a marine life rehab, Priya Nair shared with us her work with seal pups, kelp forests and more!

My experience as a marine biology student interested in marine life rehabilitation and animal care field has been full of learning. Through volunteering and an internship, I am able to learn so much about this field and have grown to love it more. I first started out as a volunteer at SR3, Sealife Response, Rehabilitation, and Research, in summer 2022, and interned this summer 2023.

Many of the responsibilities as an intern at a marine mammal rehab are cleaning, preparing food, feedings, veterinary care, and other animal care tasks. I also had the opportunity to partake in necropsies of marine mammals found on beaches or animals that unfortunately did not make it in our care. These necropsies helped us with research on why certain marine mammals in our area are dying. Another responsibility was education and outreach. SR3 has multiple outreach events each year to educate and talk to the public about our facility, our ocean, and what they can do to help. We also did some social media content as interns.

I was working on a research project at SR3 making a “Kelp Forest” for our harbor seals as enrichment. We made our kelp forest using PVC, curtain mitters (typically used for car washes), and dive weights to mimic a kelp forest in the wild. We added some slits in the kelp to add fish so they can practice foraging as they do in the wild. This is important for teaching them to forage for food since their mothers are not there to teach them. We compared our kelp forest enrichment to other enrichment devices we had at the facility and our kelp forest was the most popular. All of these opportunities have taught me so much and I’m excited to learn more in the future.

You can check out my intern “Day in the Life” vlog and my kelp forest project on the SR3 Instagram: @Sealifer3