John at girl scout meeting
Keith at elementary school
John Benjamin Sciarra
How do you train a sea lion?
John at library
John at elementary school
Author Program
John Benjamin
___________________________________________________
BEACHMASTER
Talk and book signing may include the following:
1. Video of author training Samson, a Steller sea lion at the Mystic Aquarium in the early 1970’s.
2. Stories about SEALS, SEA LIONS WHALES AND DOLPHINS!
3. Excerpts from the novel.
4. Talk and answer questions about working at a public aquarium, training animals, or the book.
a. Many stories about the early days, including the building of the Mystic Aquarium.
b. What it is like working behind the scenes, what was real and what fiction in the novel (many scenes taken from real experiences).
Special pricing for books at the event is available. John is also available to speak at private functions, book clubs, schools, etc.
Also available are John’s 2 children’s novels (see accompanying information).
Contact Information:
John Benjamin (Sciarra)
246 Meridian St.
Groton, CT 06340
860) 446-1156
860) 961-9374
sciarrajb@aol.com
www.johnbenjaminsciarra.com
“Samson the Steller Sea Lion and Friends."
Soon to be published children's book
When John was the Curator of Exhibits and Husbandry at a major public aquarium, he became the first person to ever train the dangerous male Steller sea lion from the Pribilof Islands off the coast of Alaska. The males of the species aspire to become the Beachmaster, the dominant male on the beach. John had to overcome this aggressive animal and prove that he was the beachmaster—not Samson. Sometimes he was even successful. A few times he was almost killed. John learned much about respect for the animals of the ocean and shares these with his young readers at schools and libraries.
Contact John to schedule an appearance.
Read the first 2 chapters!
SAMSON
Ad in classifieds: “Free to good home. Two-year-old Steller Sea Lion. Cute. Needs room to run and a BIG pool. Weighs over a half ton. Mate included.”
No, this ad didn’t really appear in any newspaper, but it should have!
This book is all about working with marine animals at a public aquarium. The star of the book is a Steller sea lion by the name of Samson. Samson weighed in at close to 2000 pounds! That’s a ton of animal literally and figuratively. He was twelve feet long and had four, six-inch long interlocking canines. His jaws could exert a pressure around 2000 pounds per square inch! He was exceedingly aggressive by nature. It was a survival instinct designed to drive only the strongest male to breed with the sea lion colony. It was this attitude that made training Samson the most frightening experience of my life. I still occasionally have nightmares some 30 years later.
The Steller sea lion’s natural home or habitat is off the coast of Alaska and Northern California. They reside on a group of islands called the Aleutian Islands in the Bering Sea and specifically the Pribilof Islands. The beaches there are inhabited by, not only the Steller sea lion, but also the Northern Elephant Seal and the Fur Seal.
Can you imagine what it must be like to be “THE BEACHMASTER” on one of those islands? Being the Beachmaster is little like playing “King of the Hill.” Only the biggest and strongest male, called a bull, can rule the beach and mate with all of the females. The group of females is referred to as the harem. All of the other males wanted to defeat the Beachmaster and frequently challenged him to a fight. It is that kind of environment that Samson would have grown up in had he not been placed in captivity. There is no doubt in my mind; Samson would have been the beachmaster!
The staff at the Mystic Marinelife Aquarium in Connecticut where I worked first heard about Samson when we received word of his imminent arrival. What we didn’t know is that everyone in the world had heard of Samson. Everyone, that is, except us. And no one else wanted him because they were too afraid to handle Samson! Just how dangerous an animal Samson would become, we wouldn’t find out for some time.
***
Since Steller sea lions are aggressive, powerful, agile and dangerous in their natural habitat, no one could really expect that they would be any more docile in captivity. If you’re afraid of big dogs like rotweilers, Dobermans or pit bulls, this definitely isn’t an animal you want to run into. We had just built a state–of–the–art exhibit for seals and sea lions called “Seal Island.” Samson was going to be our star attraction.
Back when Seal Island first opened it consisted of three separate exhibits: the New England Coast, the Channel Islands, and the Pribilof Islands. What made Seal Island unique was the realistic rockwork made out of concrete and fiberglass called glasscrete. Large molds were made of enormous rocks using a rubbery material made of latex. It took over a dozen coats of this material, embedded with a layer of flexible cloth, to create the mold. Then a fiberglass shell was placed to hold the shape and the entire thing was shipped back to a warehouse to be shot full of glasscrete.
Iron rods called rebar were cast into the artificial rock. This gave additional strength to the rocks. Once all the rock panels were cast, they were trucked to Seal Island and welded into place. Of course, now there were large cracks between all the rock panels. How could we make the cracks disappear and make the rocks look like they’d been there all along?
For this, another process was used. A company that can blow cement out of a large hose was hired to fill the cracks. This blown cement called gunnite had to be hand-sculpted as it was blown into the cracks. We had to wait until it begun to set (harden) before chopping away and making the fake rock panels look like they were real rock walls.
Once the panels were all hardened and sculpted, we had to spray paint them with latex stain. Then the finishing touch: a little dry brushing, a technique where a variety of similar colors are lightly brushed to give the rock natural highlights. The Channel Islands were primarily yellowish beige, the New England rockwork were painted with light grays and the Pribilofs were painted a dark, almost blackish gray to simulate the volcanic rock of the islands. Once all this was done, we were ready for our animals (after we added the water, of course!).
The Pribilof exhibit was originally designed to house a collection of pugnacious fur seals. The Aquarium’s plans had to be changed, however, when the permit to collect them was tied up in red tape. However, we couldn’t open Seal Island with out something in the exhibit! That something, it was decided, would be the most spectacular animal I had ever seen—but not at first site.
***
The day Samson arrived was a warm one. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky and the staff at the Aquarium was excited. A large holding tank in a wire enclosure was built to house Samson and his mate. Her name was, no—not Delilah—but Josie. That didn’t seem right, so the first thing we did was change her name. We promptly renamed her Delilah. She didn’t seem to mind. Delilah was small in comparison to her partner. A mere slip of a sea lion at 700 pounds, Delilah was a beautiful, sleek animal with smooth gray hair. She was never aggressive and easily trained. Samson, also appeared easy to train, but not before he tested me to the maximum.
Samson arrived in an enormous crate that look like it was designed to hold the Velociraptors from “Jurassic Park.” I think Samson would have scared the daylights out of the dinosaurs. As we opened the door to the truck that had transported him from the airport, I could hear a low gurgling sound coming from the back of the cab. He didn’t sound dangerous.
Cautiously, we began to move the cage out of the truck with a come-along, a pulley device used to move heavy objects. When we had the cage far enough out of the back of the truck, I jumped up on top and opened the large sliding door. Instead of the ferocious monster I had been expecting, there on the floor of the cage was a weary-eyed, pathetic looking sea lion that looked more like a B-52 jet bomber that had crash landed instead of the mythical dragon whose reputation was known throughout the entire world (excluding us, of course). Apparently, Samson had motion sickness.
Once we had coaxed Samson out of his traveling cage and into his new pool (which took the better part of the day), he started to perk up a bit. The ice cold spring water welling up from deep under the Aquarium grounds must have felt refreshing to him. He and Delilah began swimming around in the cold water. It was small—too small to hold the two of them, but this was to be a very temporary holding facility. Seal Island was due to be completed within a few weeks of their arrival, so they weren’t going to be there very long.
I had begun the habit of going into the exhibit and sitting at the edge of the redwood deck where the animals could haul out and sun themselves. I even felt comfortable enough to dangle my bare feet in the water. Samson began eating pretty well and showing signs of coming to life—perhaps too much.
One day after a couple of weeks I entered the enclosure and had the daylights scared out of me. Samson came flying out of the water right at me! There were only a couple of feet between the fence and me. I dove through the door a split second before Samson slammed into it. From that point onward, I decided the best course of action was to feed Samson through the fence until we moved him to his new exhibit. I wondered, what was it going to be like once Samson was moved into the Pribilof Island exhibit? The reality proved to be far worse than my worst nightmares.
Squirty
Let me introduce you to one of Samson’s “friends” before I tell you more about Samson. I use the term “friends” very loosely. A friend is someone you have affection for; pal around with; tell your innermost thoughts to. In that sense, Samson didn’t have any real friends. I’m not sure even Delilah cared much for him until breeding season. Samson tolerated only a few people and even fewer other animals, as we shall see later. But sea lions—all sea lions—are not anywhere near as affectionate as many people think.
The California Sea Lion, for example, tolerates being touched and patted because of intensive behavioral conditioning through many training sessions often over years. It is not a natural activity like a dog or cat. If this training takes place when the animal is fairly young, it is tolerated to a greater degree and gives viewers the impression that the animal is affectionate. Such is rarely the case, as the following story would seem to indicate.
The Aquarium staff had been invited to appear on a local television talk show. One of our trainers was working with a young California Sea Lion named Squirty. She had complete control over Squirty even under the studio conditions with bright lights and cameras—until the show host decided to come up to Squirty without warning to “pet” him! The horrified trainer tried to stop him, but she didn’t react quickly enough.
Squirty turned in an instant and roared at the host and snapped with his sharp teeth. Even a young sea lion has the ability to exert several thousand pounds of pressure per square inch with those jaws. Fortunately for the television host, Squirty missed. The host jumped back visibly shaken and tried to regain his composure. After all, the cameras were still rolling. Squirty instantly returned to the commands of the trainer as if nothing had happened at all. There was no hatred in his reaction. He was simply responding to what he thought was a threat.
I was off camera not far from Squirty holding a small harbor seal named Rocky. Rocky was the first marine mammal I ever laid eyes on up close. I remember how frightened I had been of him when he was only a pup weighing around thirty pounds. He growled at me the first time I tried to hold him and I jumped back like a frightened little kid. My supervisor stood outside the enclosure and made fun of me.
“What’ya scared? Come on. He’s just a baby!”
I invited my supervisor to demonstrate and he declined. Big surprise. He had never handled a harbor seal either. The course of wisdom when handling unfamiliar animals is not to play “Crocodile Hunter.” You’re more likely to keep all of you fingers if you’re at least a little frightened. As I learned how animals reacted in any given circumstance, I became more adept at handling them. I was doing okay with Rocky that day in the television studio—until Squirty noticed he had company!
Squirty, his attention turned from the control of the trainer, spotted Rocky and decided to jump off his seat and give chase. I don’t know if it was aggression or that Squirty just wanted to play, but Rocky wasn’t hanging around to find out. He broke free from my grasp. Harbor seals tend to move like an inchworm by undulating their bodies, unlike the sea lion whose hinged hips allow them to scamper pretty fast on land. Rocky undulated rather quickly, though, through the studio—under lights, TV cameras and cameramen who scurried to get out of the way. Our veterinarian was howling hysterically with laughter despite the frantic cries of the host who was desperately trying to regain control of his show. It’s a shame the cameramen couldn’t have got all of this on camera, but they were too busy running for their lives.
We grabbed a large board and managed to steer Squirty into a back room next to the studio. Unfortunately, there was a group of clowns from the local police department waiting to go on. I mean no offense to the police department here. They really were dressed in clown suits! One of the officers had a large, dead, codfish in his hands—I don’t know why, but this isn’t a particularly good thing to have in your possession in the presence of a hungry sea lion running rampant around the place unless you’re the trainer.
When they caught sight of Squirty heading in their direction growling and barking, the cod went flying and the clowns bolted, terrified out of their wits. They managed to escape. It may not have been part of their act, but I had tears streaming down my face I was laughing so hard.
Our company vehicle, a green Chevy Suburban, was parked just inside a garage door. We decide to corral Squirty into the back of the Suburban and figure out what to do from there. Squirty only weighed about one hundred and twenty pounds, but the bite of even a small sea lion can be serious.
After an hour of being chased around, Squirty became tired and jumped into the back of the truck, but not before knocking a small glass aquarium out of the back causing it to shatter into a million pieces of sharp shards and splinters. Fortunately, Squirty’s cage was in the back of the truck already and he was only too happy, at this point, to retire to the relative peace and quiet of it. I just closed the cage door and he took a nap.
Unfortunately, the best part of the chase wasn’t on film, but you get some idea how quickly a situation can get out of control. In fact, that same trainer was grabbed on stage in front of an audience by a much larger sea lion named Salty—a veteran performer with no history of aggression. Her collarbone was dislocated when Salty picked her up in his mouth and shook her for no apparent reason. Salty weighed about 450 pounds! It was a frightening experience for the trainer. We retired Salty to our Seal Island exhibit after that incident where I got to work with him. The trainer that was injured decided to retire from working with sea lions altogether.
Wild animals in the hands of a trained handler may appear to be affectionate and docile. Years of training and experience are necessary to work with these animals safely. However, even under the best of circumstances, things don’t always go as planned. Boy, do they ever not go as planned!