This month, instead of featuring a two-part review of a facility, as I often do, I'll be doing two reviews of two smaller facilities that I recently visited while traveling through the northeast.
A stone's throw away from its famous, namesake falls (please do not throw stones), the Aquarium of Niagara perches on the parkland that overlooks the raging river.
This is a fairly small aquarium which is largely situated to take advantage of the tourism that comes to see the Falls. At the time of my visit it was slated to become a fair bit larger, as a second building was under construction. This building, Great Lakes 360, focuses on the native fish and herps of the Great Lakes region, and I'm sorry that it wasn't complete by the time that I visited. I find that a lot of small aquariums are a bit repetitive in terms of species, so native sections are usually my chance to see new species (my timing of this trip was set based on other factors, so it was either visit the more-limited version of the aquarium, or potentially never see it, so my review is focused on what I could see).
Outside of the aquarium is a small pool for harbor and gray seals. It is, to be frank, one of the less-impressive seal pools I've seen, small and set low, so you're kind of looking into a pit. More pinnipeds are seen indoors in a circular enclosure for California sea lions with underwater viewing. I'd heard that the aquarium used to have Amazon river dolphins, and I assume that this was their exhibit. The exhibit struck me as a bit stark, in addition to being entirely indoors, but I saw some work being done that suggested that more complexity was being added in the form of more haul-off spaces. I've seen a few other aquariums (including some major, very well-regarded ones) that have similar set-ups for sea lions. Part of me wonders if aquariums feel that, since they get so much training, interaction, and enrichment, sea lions don't require the habitat size and complexity that one might suspect. I've never worked with pinnipeds, so this is speculation.
The fish and invertebrate exhibits are seen in the galleries that line the walls on two floors (the sea lions can also be viewed from the second floor). The tanks varied between freshwater and saltwater species, with notable occupants including Kemp's ridley sea turtle (with a large remora riding on its carapace - an aquarium staffer told me that they were often found this way, with no negative impact on the turtle), Asian arowana, electric eel, lake sturgeon, and lined seahorse. No large sharks were present, though there was a small touch pool with rays and bamboo sharks. There was also a small gallery of jellyfish. Signage was a bit lacking, which I regrettably find to be true of a great many public aquariums.
Apart from the sea lions, the building's biggest attraction is the Humboldt penguin exhibit. This is also perhaps the best of the aquarium's exhibits, and compares reasonably with indoor penguin exhibits I've seen at other facilities.
One fun fact I learned about this facility - when it opened, in 1965, it was originally planned as a test facility for keeping marine life in artificial seawater. A few other facilities had dabbled with it, but this was the first aquarium, based on its distance from the sea, to exclusively use the formula. This has greatly expanded the ability of inland cities to build and maintain marine aquariums, and is certainly a noteworthy contribution to zoo and aquarium history.
All in all, this is not an aquarium that will take too long to go through (again, without speaking to the Great Lakes 360 expansion). I don't know if I'd go out of my way for a repeat visit, and there's so much to do at Niagara Falls (I mean, you could look at the falls all day) that I don't know if I was there with a group I'd recommend taking much time for the aquarium. But if you have some time, enjoy looking at aquatic life, and want to drop a few bucks to support a nonprofit and help it care for its animals, it can be a pleasant enough place to meander for an hour.
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