During high season at the Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito, on a weekly basis, senior Megan Deutsche restrains, tube feeds, and gives injections to pups that can weigh up to 300 pounds. How’s that for a Saturday night.
Deutsche has been going every Saturday since February 2015. She discovered the teen program online, called “Youth Crew”, when she remembered how taken she was by the Marine Mammal Center rescuing a malnourished elephant seal she and her family saw on Muir Beach seven years ago.
“They had the Marine Mammal Center come and take the pup away, it was kind of cool,” Deutsche said.
According to the marine mammal center, their mission “is to expand knowledge about marine mammals—their health and that of their ocean environment—and to inspire their global conservation.” They do this through the rescue and rehabilitation of marine mammals in need, with the help of volunteers like Deutsche.
She drives an hour to arrive at 6 p.m. and, during busy season, leaves as late as 1:30 a.m.
“Busy season is February through April [with] 270 animals on sight, most of which are pups that need to be tube fed” Deutsche said.
The center usually caters to six hundred pups, but this year, busy season has meant catering up to 1500 pups.
“It is an abnormal year because climate change and the warming waters forced the pup’s food to go further away, and they aren’t able to get their food,” Deutsche said.
Deutsche is the second student ever in the AP Environmental Science class to fulfill the 12 hour community service requirement at the Marine Mammal Center, although AP Environmental Science teacher, Mr. Willats, always encourages students to take advantage of this unique opportunity.
“In any environmental science field, having this hands on experience with what people are actually doing to help any particular segment of the environment would be very valuable,” Willats said.
Willats said he realizes it is a tremendous time commitment and allows students to do community service in other areas, such as picking up trash at Lake Merritt, working with solar power companies and restoring native plants.
“It’s a really big commitment because she commits her Saturday nights, which is a sacrifice not a lot of teenagers are willing to make, but she seems to be really happy with her decision and she’s getting a lot out of it,” said Deutsche’s close friend, senior Julia Kelly.
In addition, Deutsche also has to deal with adult sized Sea Lions, that can be up to four feet tall and 600 pounds with nothing but a wooden board to protect her while she feeds them.
Despite the danger and large quantity of fish she has to sort through, Deutsche is now looking into studying Marine Biology.
“Without this I probably never would have thought of it but just the experiences I’ve had there [at the Marine Mammal Center] are amazing and it’s definitely a possibility,” Deutsche said.
