The Zoo Review: Zoo Review: Seattle Aquarium, Part I

Seattle, Washington, is as city closely tied to the sea, lying on an isthmus jutting out into Puget Sound, and famous for its fish markets, so it's not especially surprising that the city boasts of a fine aquarium. The current facility, located on Pier 59 on the waterfront (having also expanded into Pier 60), is the successor to early aquarium attractions. One of these earlier aquariums, located only yards away on Pier 56, was the first US facility to display orca. The current aquarium opened in 1977 and has had a remarkable, if short, history, focusing primarily on the sea life of the Pacific Northwest.

Visitors entering the aquarium are first treated to a handsome of the local fishes in Window on Washington Waters, a 20-foot tall tank that slants out over the visitors in the lobby. Modeled after Neah Bay's rock blades, the 120,000 gallon tank features a variety of creatures, from the anemones and sea stars that cling to the rocky bottom to the rockfish, sculpins, and wolf eels that swim about. Around the corner is a long (40 foot), thin tanks known as Crashing Waves; as the name would suggest, it represents the intertidal zone defined by the forceful movement of water. It's amazing watching the fish in this tank swimming in such a seemingly serene manner as water slams around them.

Next, the hall leads to a darkened room featuring jellies, touch pools, and, one of the aquarium's most popular exhibits, the giant Pacific octopus. The Seattle Aquarium was first in the world to breed this species, so it didn't surprise me that they had one of the finest habitats I've seen for them. It was large and complex, but also provided opportunities for the animal to demonstrate its remarkable ability to enter and navigate tiny spaces. The moon jelly habitat was likewise impressive, a tall, acrylic arch, lit up, which allowed visitors to walk through the jellies habitat. I'm not normally that interested in the touch tanks, being old and jaded at this point, but I was more easily able to appreciate them here in association with the rocky, tidal pool studded shorelines of the region - the concept just felt a little more authentic in Seattle. A non-animal component of the exhibit is the Caring Cove Play Space, which allows children to use plush animals and other toys to pretend that they are aquarists, vets, and other animal care staff, helping to build empathy in young animal lovers.

Visitors exit the building to enter the outdoor shorebird habitat, which consists of a walk-through aviary of sandpipers and plovers, as well as a glass-fronted habitat for tufted puffins and other alcids. It's exhibits like this which have left me wondering how its possible that puffins have never managed to match penguins in popularity - they might not have the strangeness of flightlessess, but their appearances are even more outlandish, and their personalities far more engaging (and besides, I think a bird that flies in the air and in the water an incredible concept).

A series of exhibits focus on the fishes of Puget Sound, especially that most iconic of Washington's fishes, the salmon. Visitors are able to see the life cycle of the salmon and learn how the fish traverse the boundaries between rivers and the sea. There are other tanks, small but handsomely furnished, featuring sculpins, lumpsuckers, and other small fish, but the most iconic feature of the aquarium is its great underwater dome. Set into a giant, concrete web-like frame, visitors peer through a series of windows into a 400,000 gallon that surrounds them on all sides, including overhead. Sturgeons and dogfish (sharks) are the stars here, but there's so much to keep track of. I'll admit the heavy concrete frame can make it a little difficult to track the fish as they swim around and I lost a few that way, but there's something special about this exhibit - whereas many aquarium exhibits look very similar, it's always a treat to see something very different and distinctive.

The weak point of the Aquarium are the marine mammal exhibits. Three marine (and one freshwater) mammal are exhibited here, and the habitats of the former three are find of meh, a little on the dull and cramped side. The species featured are sea otter, harbor seal, and, a zoological rarity, northern fur seal. The sea otters are of note - this is the first facility in the world to have bred the species (zoos and aquariums no longer breed sea otters, keeping their spaces available for non-releasable animals). River otters fare better in a larger, more naturalistic habitat. A unique feature of the aquarium is an outdoor catwalk that provides vantage points of the Sound, from which wild marine mammals can sometimes be spotted swimming along.