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Saturday, March 16, 2019

Zoo Review: Downtown Aquarium - Denver

The Denver Zoo may boast of a few aquatic exhibits as part of its Tropical Discovery building, but it is a mere fishbowl compared to one of its neighbors in the Mile High City.  Located along the banks of the South Platte River, the Downtown Aquarium of Denver is the largest aquarium between Illinois and California.  

The facility has had its share of ups and downs over the years.  It originally opened as Colorado's Ocean Journey, proving wildly popular with the public until the economic downturn after the September 11th attacks.  Faced with closure, the aquarium was purchased by the Landry's restaurant group, which purchased it, closed it for renovations, and reopened it as the Downtown Aquarium, a combination aquarium/restaurant.  Landry's also operates a sister facility in Texas, the Downtown Aquarium of Houston.  I'm shocked that the Denver facility is supposedly the larger of the two.  So much for everything being bigger in Texas, huh?


Following the purchase and renovation, the Downtown Aquarium still largely follows the design of its original plan.  It charts the flow of two rivers - one in Colorado, one in Indonesia - as they make their way to the ocean.  The geography has been fudged somewhat on the later, turning it into more of a tropical river exhibit, but other than that, it all holds the same.

After ascending a whale-shaped escalator, visitors start their journey in the streams of North America, where they walk through a simulated canyon flanked by tanks of Rio Grande chub, rainbow trout, and other freshwater species.  Most of the visitor attention will probably be focused on the North American river otters.  The otters can be seen underwater, above water, or in their den through a window.  It's in an impressive enough exhibit, but I immediately forgot it when I rounded the next corner and found myself in a darkened room.  There, through floor-to-ceiling glass, I stood entranced watching enormous white sturgeons glide in front of me.  I'll admit a tendency of mine to gloss over fish when I go to aquariums (silly, considering, after all, that it's an aquarium), but these big guys really stayed with me, and I watched them for quite a while.


The exhibit path then turns to the deserts, beginning with a walk through a stimulated flash-flood zone (complete with sound and lighting effects).  The effect is furthered by the replicated skeleton of a Mosasaur, a prehistoric marine reptile, being embedded in the rockwork nearby, reminding visitors that what now is desert once was seabed.  Continuing along, there are  small exhibits of endangered desert fish, as well as a few small habitats of reptiles and amphibians and an open air exhibit of non-releasable shorebirds.


More aquatic habitats are explored in the Wharf, a peek underneath the docks of a Pacific harbor town.  It's a pretty cool exhibit - no quite immersive (I find it almost impossible for aquarium exhibits to be immersive, considering that you are obviously breathing and therefore not underwater), but pretty stylish.  The main tank features leopard sharks and a host of other medium-sized fishes, which visitors can pop into the middle of for closer peeks using tunnels and bubbles.  Small stand alone tanks feature smaller fish and marine invertebrates.

If there is one exhibit that really makes this aquarium stand out - for good or for ill - in the eyes of most visitors, it is the Rainforest.  Many aquariums have displays of Amazon River fishes, coupled perhaps with sloths, monkeys, caiman, and birds.  The exhibit here originally focused on Indonesian river life, broadening into rainforests of the world.  There are tanks of piranhas,  African cichlids, archerfish, and Asian arowanas (the much sought-after species described in The Dragon Behind the Glass, by Emily Voigt), among other rainforest fish, to be sure, along with turtles and macaws.  The main attraction, however, is the tiger habitat - a completely indoor towering habitat for Sumatran tigers, which can be seen through several windows perched on rocky crags or splashing in their pool.  This is one of only two indoor aquarium buildings I've seen to exhibit a big cat - and to be honest, I'm not even sure if the other exhibit (Dallas World Aquarium's jaguar exhibit) is still around.  The exhibit is of a good size - at least as big as some outside tiger exhibits I've seen - and looks naturalistic enough.  Still, it just looked... weird to me have a big cat entirely indoors.  The Houston branch on the Downtown Aquarium also keeps tigers (white Bengals, in their case) in an indoor enclosure, and they are constantly targeted by animal rights groups.  Strangely, I haven't heard much of Denver being bothered by them - though I did note a few docents who seemed to be permanently stationed by the tigers, perhaps to answer such questions and head off criticisms.


Pass the tigers, things get a bit more conventional.  There are coral reef exhibits and a major shark exhibit, where green sawfish, barracuda, and other big fish glide alongside sand tiger sharks and nurse sharks.  (One feature that I loved was that the tank extends beneath visitors as well - you can look through windows in the floor and watch sharks swimming directly under your feeet).  There is a touch tank where stingrays can be fed, with an exhibit of giant Pacific octopus stationed nearby.  And, finally, there is the obligatory gift shop.  At the end is the aquarium's rather fancy looking restaurant, where patrons can dine while watching the fish swim by.  I didn't stay (read: probably couldn't afford) to eat, but I did sneak in to take a look around and see what the experience must be like.  I must admit, it's a great view.  (In the old aquarium, this was a sea otter exhibit before being re-purposed as a restaurant when Landry bought the facility).  Be sure to check out the parkland outside, along the river.  It's quite pretty and relaxing.

I'm still have a hard time believing that the Downtown Aquarium is the biggest between the Mississippi River and California - I feel like I went through it fairly quickly.  Like many of the newer aquariums, it's built along a straight-shot path, which seems to discourage rambling and exploring (Chicago's Shedd Aquarium is still my favorite in that respect).  Exhibits looked nice enough with an impressive variety of marine and freshwater life, though I feel like many of these aquariums are getting a little cookie-cutter with their displays and species selection.  Of course, that excludes the cat in the room...


The tiger exhibit was actually much nicer than I thought it would be.  It was big, it seemed enriched, and the cat I saw seemed healthy and content.  That being said, it also just seemed shoe-horned in.  If I were making a completely indoor exhibit of Indonesian river life, I can't say tigers would have been my go-to idea.  Granted, they've already got one otter exhibit so probably don't need a second one.  Tomistoma or some other crocodilian?  Fishing cat?  Malayan tapir, even?  I know Landry bought the building and it already had a tiger exhibit built into it, but they've made other changes.  On the other hand, I'm torn.  I have a hard time telling if it's the tiger exhibit itself that makes me uncomfortable (as I've said myself, it's better than I expected and the animals looked fine) or whether I just know that a lot of people find exhibits like this questionable, and so I want to cut potential losses and do something else.  The later, I admit, is not the way we should be managing animal collections and is a bit cowardly of me.

Having seen the Downtown Aquarium of Denver, I would be up for going to the Houston facility next time I'm in that city and making up my own mind about it.  I suspect that I might find that rumors and reports of that aquarium fail to do it proper justice.



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