Rescuing marine life takes a lot of manpower, and heavy equipment, with some animals weighing several hundred pounds.
Now, the Clearwater Marine Aquarium has a brand new lift system to help with their precious, heavy cargo, like Winter and Hope, all thanks to a local business’ generosity.
Florida Handling Systems’ Vice President, Joe DiCesare, said one of their customer’s was at the aquarium, saw the old lift, and reached out.
“They saw a system that was not working properly. They called us, said hey, is there any way you can help out?” said DeCesare.
Help wasn’t far behind. Florida Handling Systems’ out of Bartow expanded its crane and hoist business from bridges to marine life, donating the installation and service for the lift, while Harrington Hoists donated the hoist.
"It’s tremendous, these kind of donations and sponsorships to CMA, we could not live without them," said Mike Hurst, Vice President of Zoological Care and Operations for Clearwater Marine Aquarium.
The lift was recently used to rescue a baby dolphin, but it can hold up to 2,000 pounds, making things a lot easier at the aquarium.
"When you have a 500 pound dolphin or a 300 pound sea turtle, it’s pretty hard to lift them up," said Hurst. "So when we have hoist equipment like this where we’re able to actually able to lift the animal out of the truck and hoist them into the environment they’re going into."
Once in their new home, the lift is used for continued care. Clearwater Marine Aquarium said when an animal is in critical condition, they do a lot of medical analysis on them, sometimes lifting them with the hoist once each day.
Without donations like the lift, and help from the community, the Clearwater Aquarium said it wouldn’t be able to carry out their mission: rescue, rehabilitate, and release.