Swim team members' assistance with porpoises garners media coverage
Swim team members' assistance in the rehabilitation of two harbor porpoises at UNE's Marine Animal Rehabilitation Center was featured in stories on NECN news, the Journal Tribune, and the Portland Press Herald March 11, 12, and 26, 2010. One of the porpoises, Toughy, had to undergo physical therapy for a spine curvature. Morgan Lawless, co-captain of the swim team recruited 10 teammates to volunteer. Swim team members took turns, enabling Toughy and the second porpoise, #12, to get swimming therapy twice a day. Because porpoises tend to swim clockwise, the swim team members worked to get Toughy to swim counterclockwise to tighten the porpoise's left side and loosen the right side. Unfortunately Toughy was euthanized on March 18th. Watch the NECN video of Toughy before her death.