So I got to be on the Oscar feeding team again today, and it was fun
as always, even though he wasn't hungry.

Jenny, the newest member of the Sunday A Dive Team at the National
Aquarium in Baltimore, had not yet had a chance to feed Oscar, the
newest resident of the Atlantic Coral Reef exhibit.

The protocol for feeding Oscar, who happens to be a four-foot green
moray, is for two divers to locate him and offer him food. One diver
impales a morsel, usually a large smelt, on a stiff nylon nail at the
end of a PVC stick. The other diver is the bag man. The rest of the
eel's meal, usually a squid, a half a mackerel, maybe a herring and a
few more smelt, is carried in a black canvas bag with a mesh bottom.

The Oscar divers enter the water first and go hunt for the eel. When
we first got Oscar, back in March, that was easy. He pretty much
stayed put in a large cave with several outlets. Once he figured out
that there was nothing else in the tank that was going to harm him, he
started roaming free around the tank, to the delight of the aquarium's
visitors. Finding Oscar became a challenge. There are lots of suitable
moray holes around the tank, and he was trying them all out, but
sometimes he would surprise us and wait right at the platform. He
likes to come up on the feeding diver from behind. Once he settled on
a divers head and wrapped himself up like a turban. Maybe his name
should be Omar.

Anyway, he finally settled on the longest, darkest swimthrough in the
tank, a place we love to cruise through. It has three entrances at
ground level, and one vertical  escape route, and that seemed just
fine for Oscar. He found a large standing PVC T-fitting to wrap around
and watch for whatever he's watching for.

I suspected that's where he would be today, since that's where he's
been the last three times I've been in the tank. And so he was. I led
Jenny to him. I came around the entrance, and he spotted me
immediately. Usually he's a little wary, waiting to see what's up,
holding back in the shadows. Today, as soon as he saw me, he started
swimming toward me. I backed out slowly, and he followed, his nose
just inches from my mask. I led him out to Jenny, who offered the
smelt-on-a-stick. Oscar ignored it. She offered it again. He swam
around her and ignored it. She gently stuck it between his jaws. He
ignored it.

So I implemented Plan B. I opened the black bag. Oscar loves the black
bag. He immediately stuck his head in and sniffed each piece of food.
And that's all. He ate none of it. He pulled his head out and sniffed
my fingers. That's the time to concentrate. You so much want to tickle
his nose, but you dare not, in case he suddenly develops a craving for
black-gloved human fingers. He sniffed and moved on. Jenny tried
offering him the smelt again. He ignored it, but he stayed in the
area. swimming around us, diving into the bag from time to time, but
still eating nothing.

At least he was out in the open, in the light, where the visitors on
the other side of the four-inch plexiglass could see him. Finally, he
decided they had had their money's worth. He very decidedly turned and
swam back into the cave, clearly done with us. Jenny and I looked at
each other and shrugged and swam away.

I didn't talk to the team that tried to feed him in the afternoon to
find out if he ate then. He only eats every few days anyway, so nobody
gets too upset if he doesn't. There are plenty of other fish to eat it
for him, like the groupers and the yellowtails, the scrawled filefish
and the spadefish and lookdowns. Nobody goes hungry.

On my other dives today, I fed the male southern stingrays and
bullnose rays, and the spiny butterfly ray that flaps insanely in
front of you, then lays flat and waits for you to hold a smelt at the
end of your fingers, flat on the bottom, up against the outer edges of
his pectoral. When he's ready, and usually when you're not, he slaps
the smelt out of your hand with his pectoral, glides over it and eats
it.

I finished the day with my favorite activity, stoning the surgeonfish
in the reef exhibit.  More about this another time.

Back to the aquarium on Wednesday, when I'm subbing for someone who
must want to spend the holiday with his family. I love it when that
happens.

gc