Registration Required. 

The Mystic Aquarium's Animal Rescue Program is hosting a 2-hour annual training session for the 2024 First Responder Certification. Certification is available to anyone 18 or over, but you are welcome to bring your kids or teens to sit in on the class with you if you'd like.

Registration is required, please register HERE.

Since 1975, Mystic Aquarium’s Animal Rescue Program (ARP) has been rescuing, rehabilitating and releasing sick, injured and stranded marine animals along 1,000 miles of the Northeastern coastline throughout Connecticut, Rhode Island and Fishers Island, New York. As a founding member of the Greater Atlantic Region Stranding Network, the ARP also learns more about why these stranded animals came to shore. Working closely with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Fisheries, which is the ARP’s permitting office, and other government agencies, the Animal Rescue Team responds to an average of 400 hotline calls each year while also providing support to other stranding facilities in New England and even as far as California and Bermuda!

First Responders are an integral part of our animal rescue team as they are essentially the "first eyes" on animals in the field that we get reported to our hotline. We dispatch first responders in the field to relay information back to us on an animal's health (are there injuries, is the animal responsive, etc.) and then we determine if it's a healthy animal that we need to set up continued monitoring for throughout the day or if its a sick or injured animal that needs to come back for rehabilitation. Since we have such a large coverage area extending throughout CT, RI, and Fisher's Island, NY, and at times have multiple animals in the field at once, it is very helpful to have responders to report this information back to us about the animals. 

First responders are anyone from the general public that wants to volunteer! We understand that all of our responders have jobs or other commitments in their lives, so this program is great because there is no time-commitment. We have over 250 first responder volunteers with the program and if people are busy when we call them to respond to an animal, we just move down our list to the next responder who lives in the stranding location area. Other than the 2-hour annual training, there are no other requirements for first responders, although we have other advanced training opportunities throughout the year.