Wadding in the Wadden (Northern) Sea- Week 3

This week was a lot more exciting for me than the past 2 weeks. We did a bit more traveling this week (which was very tiring) but it was for sure more fun. I am still amazed at how many beautiful and massive building there are. Most of built hundreds of yeas ago. Thank goodness we have been given tours so I don't get soo lost in these eminence cities. Later in the week we go to Busum and that was a big contrast to Berlin. Yet, it was still cute and I liked it a lot. It was funny that Busum is basically a  smaller Florida with having more elderly people, but much colder.

The Anatomy-Histology institut was very interesting to visit. It was cool to see how vet students in Germany have their classes, at least in Freie University of Berlin. The most impressive thing is that they has windows, WINDOWS, in the anatomy lab. Ours has no windows at all. They were big and let in so much light. One could see a some green pastures and trees. I would love to have that in our anatomy lab. Of course there are issues with rights activists that would ruin that in the states. I also really like the book stands. This allowed the students to have their book up and away from the dissections. The books would still get a little dirty but not as much as they can like in my anatomy lab.  The anatomy lab also had a second story ledge that allowed one to look down into the anatomy lab. There was of course skeletons and plastic models in the lab to help students study. I am kinda in love with that lab. In another part of the Anatomy-Histology insitut, there was a study room that had glass cases full of skeletons, plastic models, plastered models and lots of other neat anatomy models to help students while they were studying. It was amazing. We have something kinda similar in a hall way but we really cant take  those out to study.

The Jewish museum tour confused me at first. We were given a tour of the architecture of the museum. Once we got started I understood why we were. The architect who was making the museum was trying to make people feel and sense more how Jewish people over the hundreds of years felt. It was intense. The one sculpture that freaked me out was the falling leaves/faces one. I cringed when I climbed over all the metal faces. I did not stayed on very long out there. We had to rush through the rest of the museum but it was still awesome all that I had seen.

In the zoo and wildlife research institute, it was cool to see the institute but it was too bad we could not take pictures (I understand though).  We got to see a grand CT scan that produced 3D and 4D images. I don't know if we have something similar but I would be happy if Texas A&M did.  I even got to practice some blow darting and after 4 tries I hit the 'cheetah' on the tarsus. I was super excited!

Except for the way the Tour guide treated us while giving the tour, The National History Museum was pretty interesting. What I loved the most was the room/wall of exotic animals. I never knew what a tanuki (raccoon dog) actually looked like and was very pleased to finally see one (even if not alive). The museum had lots of hands-on stuff as well.

On Wednesday, we headed over to Busum and stopped by two centers. The first was the seal center where they educate people about seals. The center was very well put together. They had 2 main pools that housed about 5 adult seals that are unable to be released into the wild. One of the trainers/caretakers talked to us about the facility and the seals they take care of. They work with seal hunters to rescue abandoned seal pups and raise them strong enough to release into the wild. I was amazed at all the work they do here. Their educational areas were very well made too. They were able to explain how the immune system worked in an almost accurate but fun way.


The second center we went to was the Multimar Wattfourm center. It is a educational center that teaches the public about the mud flats and waters off the northern coast of  Germany. I did not think that there would be soo much creatures living in the mud. I was excited to see them in real life in the mud flat walk in the next few days. The part I loved the best was the basement which talked about whales. I knew that whales used sonar to find food but not to paralyze them; that was amazing!

The next day we went to the Aquatic Wildlife center. We had a few lectures about the facility and the research being done there. The research on monitoring the movement of wild animals was the most interesting. Afterwards, we went to the most anticipated part of the whole study abroad trip, for me at least. We got to do dissections on two 'fresh' marine mammals, one harbor seal and harbor porpoise. The seal was more fresh so it bled a lot more compared to the porpoise. We found that the seal was pregnant when it died and had aborted its pup. The pup looked nothing like a seal pup, more like a ball of fur. The seal also had its intestines twisted onto itself. The veterinarians believed that the unborn pup was possibly dead before the mother died and that the twisted intestines most likely killed her. The porpoise had a more ironic death in my opinion. We think that the porpoise possibly died from choking on a fish. We found a fish in the bifurcation of the trachea. There was 2 more fish in the stomach and intestine. The veterinarians from the institute said it is unusual for marine mammals to choke on their meals. The end of the dissection consisted of helping the veterinarians make samples for them to sent to lab and finding parasites and preparing them to send off too. I very much enjoyed that dissection. The smell was tolerable, much better that formaldehyde.

The mud flats were one of the best things to happen this week. We first started off in an area with lots of shells from dead clams and mussels. We had to walk over these shells to get to the deeper part of the mud flats. I learned that day that my feet are sensitive and delicate. I was soo happy when we got to the more mud than sea shell part of the mud flats. The tour guide showed us many of the creatures that live in the mud like the lion worm and the pacific mussel.  He explained how many migrating birds stop here at the mud flats before going all the way to Africa. Who would of thought some mud is important for the ecosystem. It was hilarious to get knee deep stuck in the mud though.

This week was great compared to the previous week, for me at least. I am excited for next week and meeting the Netherlands vet students.