Monterey Bay Aquarium "Arctic Exhibit" - What are the chances?

[Northwest_FIsh_Keeping]

Monterey Bay Aquarium is known for their "Special Exhibits", galleries that are only meant to be around for a limited number of years before being closed down and being moved onto the next big theme. Generally, the Aquarium always has 2 Special Exhibits run at the same time (ex. "Seahorses and Pipefish" and "Jellies Experience") (ex. "Tentacles" and "Viva Baja") in the basement level space.
Now it's officially been a little over 2 years since "Tentacles" closed leaving "Into the Deep" being the only special exhibit running for the last few years. Usually a year or two after a special exhibit closes, the Aquarium drops a couple hints or teasers before the big reveal of the next special Exhibit (ie. Viva Baja closed down in 2020, then the first teaser for Into the Deep was dropped in 2021 in the Member's only magazine). So far, the Aquarium has been very, very tight mouthed about what the next special exhibit focus will be on. Nothing in person at the aquarium, nothing on social media, my friends on staff won't say anything (that's a given lol but you know). But given a few pieces of recent news, the idea of an Arctic Exhibit coming to Monterey Bay doesn't seem too far-fetched in my mind.

A couple examples:

• MBARI (Monterey Bay Aquarium's sister research institution) who they have already collaborating with for Into the Deep, expanded their research in Antarctica last year so it's a larger scaled operation with more resources going into it.
• At least on Instagram, the MBA account has been sharing some of MBARI's Antarctica work which is a given since they share a lot of MBARI's deep-sea work, but the Arctic work was a little spontaneous.
• Thanks to their work so far on Into the Deep, they have the knowledge and resources to drop the water temperature extremely cold, and play with more water parameters that weren't possible before.
• A good handful of species that are found in the Arctic are already species that the Aquarium has prior experience with, or are currently on exhibit (ex. Basket Stars, Sea Angels, Sea Spiders, Skeleton Shrimp, etc). They're not the same species to be fair, however should be similar in care.
• The Vancouver Aquarium has a small scale Arctic exhibit (about 6 tanks) that shows you don't need a wide variety to make a pretty nice display of Arctic species.

Now Monterey Bay's exhibit would be on a much larger scale since they have a larger space to use but I don't think it's that crazy of an idea considering it's Monterey Bay. A lot of these animals are Benthic / aren't very active swimmers so the space for tanks wouldn't have to be that crazy. A couple species I could see MBA getting their hands on include:

• Northern Basket Stars | Gorgonocephalus arcticus (the Aquarium already has Gorgonocephalus eucnemis in "Into the Deep").
• Sea Angels | Clione limacina (the Aquarium already displays the species seasonlly in "Into the Deep" every Spring when they show up in the bay)
• Arctic Comb Jellies | Mertensia ovum (The Aquarium is no stranger to dealing with extremely difficult Jellies and Ctenophores so this would be another potential Aquarium breakthrough)
• Kaleidoscope Jellies | Haliclystus auricula (species of Stalked Jelly from the Arctic)
• Linear Skeleton Shrimps | Caprella linearis (The aquarium already has another species on exhibit in another part of the Aquarium)

Plus the species that Vancouver has on exhibit such as the Arctic Char, Arctic Anemones, various Sea Stars, lots of Sculpins, Arctic Cod, etc.

Now I'm guessing a lot of the Staff's time and resources are currently going towards "Into the Deep" which makes sense and deservingly so, I'm just very curious and excited to see what Monterey Bay has cooking up after what a success Into the Deep has been so far 2 years into it's exhibit life

 

[Northwest_FIsh_Keeping]

Well, if it's worth anything / has any merit to it, Matt Wandell who is the Husbandry Operations Project Manager at the Aquarium, did drop this picture on social media. This is definitely a super far reach, but the colors that they're playing with on this screen are reminiscent of the shades of blue a lot of other Zoos and Aquariums use for artificial Icebergs, specifically the underside of them where they're in the water. Also, a similar shade of lighting that Museums will use on Arctic exhibits to reflect off the artificial icebergs.
Maybe they're getting closer to revealing what the next special exhibit will be, since Matt does oversee a lot of the exhibit design. I'm definitely grasping at straws here but it is a little suspicious to me (in a good way, I'd be so stoked if they are planning on an Arctic exhibit)

 

[DavidBrown]

Several years they did a tropical Americas exhibit with flamingoes (I didn't see it). Could an Antarctic exhibit possibly feature polar penguins? That might be a lot of work for a temporary exhibit, especially since they have a permanent African penguin already...but if they needed a star species to anchor an Antarctica exhibit...

 

[Northwest_FIsh_Keeping]

Several years they did a tropical Americas exhibit with flamingoes (I didn't see it). Could an Antarctic exhibit possibly feature polar penguins? That might be a lot of work for a temporary exhibit, especially since they have a permanent African penguin already...but if they needed a star species to anchor an Antarctica exhibit...

I wouldn't be entirely opposed to it, it would be interesting to see, but it could turn into an African Penguin situation where they were meant to be a temporary exhibit, but got turned into a permanent exhibit because of how much love it got from the community. I do remember Matt mentioning to me that the African Penguins are supposed to get a renovation / slight expansion sometime in the near future, someone mentioned that this could also be like a simulated sky / tidal color scheme they could be using for that which I can see as well.
If they are going for an Arctic exhibit, I know the Aquarium already has puffins but maybe they can put in a temporary seabird exhibit in with other Arctic seabirds like Rhinoceros Auklets, Pigeon Guillemot's, Spectacled Eiders, etc. even if it is temporary.
I hope their Japan connections are as strong for this exhibit as they are for Into the Deep. There are a few species of Arctic Icefishes that are kept in various aquariums there, those would be so cool to see in the US.

 

[SeaOtterHQ]

MBARI (Monterey Bay Aquarium's sister research institution) who they have already collaborating with for Into the Deep, expanded their research in Antarctica last year so it's a larger scaled operation with more resources going into it.

Not sure if MBARI was involved, but some of the species collected on a recent expedition to Antarctica such as the sea butterfly (Clio pyramidata antarctica) and the sea pig (Protelpidia murrayi) would be cool additions to the Into the Deep exhibit. The research team even got the sea butterfly to lay eggs in an aquarium tank, so displaying them in the near future might not be impractical. I don't think the Japanese deep sea collections at Okinawa Churaumi or Aquamarine Fukushima have bred or exhibited these species yet.

Several years they did a tropical Americas exhibit with flamingoes (I didn't see it). Could an Antarctic exhibit possibly feature polar penguins? That might be a lot of work for a temporary exhibit, especially since they have a permanent African penguin already...but if they needed a star species to anchor an Antarctica exhibit...

If the rumors are true and SeaWorld San Diego chooses to remove their Penguin Encounter permanently, I would love it if their Emperor penguins and other species ended up at either Monterey Bay or the Detroit Zoo. Detroit could probably accommodate them more readily with their current facilities, but if MBA were serious about such an exhibit, I have no doubt they'd do a great job.

 

[Sphenisciologist]

I agree with @Northwest_FIsh_Keeping in regards to keeping Antarctic penguins temporarily. Antarctic penguins are usually a huge hit at any zoo/aquarium they're kept at and I can't imagine it would go any differently at Monterey, even with African penguins are kept (I find that guests are much more drawn to the Antarctic species - as I've seen at zoos that keep both banded and Antarctics).

Additionally, I can't imagine any facility going through the effort of developing an Antarctic penguin exhibit just for it to become temporary. They're expensive to get ahold of and their enclosures are expensive to develop, so if one was to go through the trouble of designing one, why would they go through with all of that just to plan to get rid of it ultimately? Definitely not a good idea in my mind.
But they could easily not have to pay refrigerating expenses, cutting the cost significantly, if they were to phase Antarctic penguins out and replace them with a new banded/little blue species in the same enclosure - if Monterey wants to go about that since they have Africans already.

Pertaining to what @SeaOtterHQ stated, seeing emperor penguins end up at Detroit would be a dream. I can't see them ending up at Monterey anytime soon,