A walrus learns to quack like a duck
The repertoire of a walrus called Misha, a star of the Primorsky Aquarium, has been extended with a new trick. Now at the performance with marine mammals the audience can hear Misha quacking like a real duck.
“We didn’t train the walrus to produce this particular sound; in the wild walruses use various sounds while communicating with each other”, says Anton Orlov, a marine mammal trainer at the Primorsky Aquarium. “But I had to reinforce this behaviour to create the act”.
In Misha’s repertoire there are about 40 acts, and most of them are compound. For example, the Working Out Abs act consists of four elements: the walrus weighing 800 kg turns around to the audience, lies down on its back, puts its flappers behind the head and only then starts to raise and lower itself “working out” its abs. The walrus had to learn the sequence of tricks to perform the act.
Misha is a hard-nosed star: the walrus has two programs in its repertoire, long and short ones, and which of them will be performed depends mainly on Misha’s mood. But regardless of its mood swings, the pinniped star always throws kisses at its fans and gladly accepts their applause.
