Thomas C. McGowen Fund For Animals Awards NMLC with Grant Funds

The National Marine Life Center in honored to report that we will be the recipient of $5,000 in funding from the Thomas C. McGowen Fund for Animals in 2014. The grant funds were awarded to NMLC in order to install seawater discharge piping in our marine animal hospital, and install a seawater cooling system on the Douglas J. Fletcher Memorial Seal and Sea Turtle Rehabilitation tank.

This past summer the National Marine Life Center received funding in honor of Ernest and Anita Labadie to install a sea water cooling system onto one of our seal rehabilitation pools. The system, a GPC25 Glacier Pool Cooler, allowed the rehabilitation pool to stay open to seal patients all summer long. While this system was working well for seals through the hot summer months, our other system, the Douglas J. Fletcher Memorial Seal and Sea Turtle Rehabilitation Pool, had to be shut down. Even with up to two water changes a day, our staff and volunteers were unable to keep the water temperatures low enough for seal patients. In addition to the already warm water and air temperature in the summer, our filtration systems designed to keep the water clean circulate the water through pumps heating it even more. With the funds from this grant the National Marine Life Center will be able to accept many more seal patients this summer through the busy pupping and weaning season.

In addition to the seawater chiller the grant will also cover discharge plumbing for both systems within the hospital. NMLC pumps clean life sustaining salt water from the Cape Cod Canal to fill its rehabilitation pools. When we need to do a water change on a systems to reduce temperature, or increase water clarity and cleanliness the process is very labor intensive. Up to this point to do a water change has required that staff and volunteers connect heavy fire hoses from the tanks to the discharge line at the back of the hospital (over 100ft away). When we have finished draining the pools the heavy hoses must be drained, coiled, and put away. Installing permanent discharge plumbing will reduce, labor, time, and energy in our hospital and will make our operation cleaner and safer for our staff, volunteers, and animal patients.

We are grateful to the Thomas C. McGowan Fund For Animals for making the installation of these important features possible. Keep an eye out on our website and Facebook pages for updates on these projects. If you would like to contribute to this project or to the rehabilitation, science, and education programs at NMLC please click here.