Clearwater Marine Aquarium

Education:In FY 2022, Education Department hosted the "Go Wild" event and invited local wildlife rescue organizations onsite to discuss the conservation issues of raptors, reptiles, and other wildlife similar to those of the marine animals.For the summer of 2022, the department educated over 1,000 summer campers on marine conservation and stewardship in the R.O. Jacobson Education Center. In addition to summer camps, the Department partnered with the Saint Petersburg Film Commission to host a four-week conservation documentary film camp, to highlight CMA's mission, for high school independent filmmakers in conjunction with the Sunscreen Film Festival. For 2022, nearly 15,000 students and guests participated in educational programming onsite including new programming; such as, Family Fun Days and Apollo's Pre-K Pals. In addition, the Aquarium continued to provide programming to long-standing program partners specializing in travel education.For the 9th year in a row, the "Trash to Toys" contest was conducted to celebrate Earth Day. Local Pinellas and Hillsborough County schools are invited to use trash found in their classroom to create an environmental enrichment device or toy for our resident dolphins. The winning class receives an offsite program in their classroom by a Clearwater Marine Aquarium educator.The education continued outside our four walls and into the community. The Education Department attended several events and festivals during 2022. Including, the Great American Teach-In where we visited 24 classrooms and engaged with over 1,500 students. At the Aquarium, the team participated in our summer-long guest event, Summer Glow, by providing special boat tours and boat tours for the Halloween "Boos and Bubbles" event and the 50-Year Jubilee Celebration capstone event. In addition, over 50,000 guests were educated on the Aquarium's Eco-boat tours that discuss the marine environment in Clearwater Bay.

Inspiration:Through sharing Winter's transformative story in the hit movies Dolphin Tale and Dolphin Tale 2, this inspirational story has continued to invoke passion in millions of people worldwide. Apart from capturing hearts across the globe, the impact Winter has had runs especially close to the community facing medical challenges and wounded military personnel. CMA donates general admission tickets to these families along with a variety of programs from specialized dolphin interactions to boat tours and personal tours of CMA. The CMA Inspiration program hosts children and families battling a wide variety of difficult illnesses, limb differences and much more. These free programs are designed to inspire and bring life change to the participants, of which CMA has hosted many thousands over the years. Through our ever-expanding social media audience and partnerships with wish-granting organizations across the country, hospitals and military partners, Clearwater Marine Aquarium continues to provide lasting inspirational experiences to thousands of children afflicted by injury or sickness We're proud to provide a space for families battling hard times to enjoy the inspiration of Winter's story and our other rescued animals in a calm, safe, and welcoming environment. Additionally, we work to Inspire the next generation of conservationists through our ongoing work and leadership in the field.

Animal Care:Marine MammalThis year two new bottlenose dolphins became permanent residents in the Ruth and J.O. Stone Complex. Apollo was rescued and deemed non-releasable after stranding on Playalinda Beach when he was approximately three years old due to atypical hearing loss. Izzy was rescued and considered non-releasable at roughly seven years old due to high-risk human habituation and the potential for severe life-threatening injuries after years of illegal human interaction in North Padre Island. Both dolphins are acclimating well in the Stone Complex, where our team can continue to use their stories to educate about the importance of marine conservation.Relationships between the resident animals and their Animal Care Specialists allow the CMA teams and the guests to share in the successes during the learning process. Nicholas was the first dolphin to participate in his quarterly physical process, celebrated by guests and staff when he completed all X-ray positions voluntarily!The Animal Care Program diligently worked alongside various departments within CMA to produce all necessary materials for accreditation with the Alliance of Marine Mammal Parks and Aquariums. From documentation and presentation, to an on-site evaluation, the focus was to highlight all the great work CMA does in the marine mammal industry. This hard work and dedication resulted in official accreditation with the alliance, the first of many accreditations for Zoological Care.RescueCMA's Rescue Team is a Marine Mammal Health and Stranding Response Program member in the Southeast Region Stranding Network. A Stranding Agreement (SA) with NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) authorizes the team to respond to cetacean events in six counties and to conduct dolphin rehabilitation at Fred Howard Park. Every three years, CMA must renew the agreement, providing NMFS with information regarding our rescue program, qualified individuals within the program, and resources allowing our team to execute tasks in the field and during rehab. This year, the Rescue team provided a comprehensive renewal package to NOAA-NMFS, which included a thorough review of the program and its capabilities and a record of successful stranding responses and data management. The SA proposal was accepted and renewed in June for another three years.The Fred Howard Park Marine Mammal Stranding Station reopened this year with upgrades, including a new water storage system. NOAA awarded CMA John H. Prescott Marine Mammal Rescue Assistance grant funds to purchase and install four 11,000-gallon storage reservoirs. The system is located on the rehabilitation pool's south side and connected to the existing filtration. Project goals were to adjust water levels whenever animal health conditions dictated, protect animals from harmful environmental conditions, and provide animals with deeper water earlier in the rehabilitation process. Secondarily, this system allows the team to respond to animal emergencies and not compromise our DEP permit conditions for water discharge out to the bay.This past year, the Rescue team was busy in the field with 22 cetacean responses, the rescue or recovery of 180 sea turtles, assisting 14 live manatee rescues or transports, and fielding 389 calls for wildlife. The most notable cases include a successful and collaborative effort to disentangle a bottlenose calf in the Dunedin ICW and the rescue and transport of a young male calf entangled in a crab trap under Pier 60.NestingThe 2022 nesting season reported 313 nests reported by biologists, up from last year 281 nests and 222 nests in 2020. Quite a few hatchlings received treatment from CMA's Animal Health Program. Included in this number, 79 hatchlings were successfully rescued, rehabilitated, and released offshore while 324 hatchlings were released on the beach. The greatest challenge this year there was an alarming number of disorientation events, requiring the team to be out on the beach and in the roadways for multiple hours in the middle of the night recovering disorientated hatchlings. CMA's Sea Turtle Conservation Program (STCP) participated in a research study with FWC, where artificial lighting impacts to nesting turtles and their hatchlings were statistically evaluated. The findings were presented at the Big C meeting where the mayors of all barrier island communities were able to understand impacts of artificial light pollution. To mitigate this conservation challenge, CMA continues efforts through education and outreach, light site evaluations, and light surveys. This past year in Pinellas County, 26 lighting retrofits occurred with five more in progress!DiveCMA dive program continued to support the Zoological Care Program by providing resources aiding in clean habitats for the resident animals. The team has grown in labor, recently adding two-full time Dive Coordinators as well as procuring a new dive compressor so CMA has the ability to fill our own tanks used in SCUBA diving. The Dive Program is responsible for the cleaning of all underwater habitats, while maintaining their annual safety certifications and SCUBA check out requirements.Sea Turtle and Aquatic BiologyThis year, Sea Turtle and Aquatic Biology department added quite a few animals for our guests to enjoy:" "Speckles or "Spec" is a tessellated eel who now calls Mangrove Key Kids Zone home. The eel was rehomed, from a local hobbyist who was looking to restructure his personal aquariums. Spec is a great replacement for our previous resident "Spot" who was a guest favorite down in Lower Mangrove." Boba," a small green sea turtle, joined the CMA family in December of 2021. He was originally found floating, unable to dive, and taken in for rehabilitation at Sea World. A CT exam revealed he had an old healed injury to his carapace which showed an impact to his spine causing buoyancy. Boba also presented with fibropapilloma while in rehab thus a one-year fibropapilloma free prior to being able to be on display with our resident sea turtle collection. Boba passed the one-year mark and can now be see on display residing in Turtle Bayou with conspecifics, Cocoa and Harold.Additional changes include the relocation of animals in alignment with FWC rule. Harold has matured and moved to Turtle Bayou with Cocoa and Boba. Similarly, Snorkel, the female loggerhead was moved to Mavis to swim with six other female sea turtles.