Otaru Aquarium, Otaru.
After two non-zoo days, it was time to go back to Sapporo, which acted as the hub for all the zoos and the rest of my travelling. The first facilities visited is Otaru Aquarium. Located in Otaru, a port city which is 45 minutes away from Sapporo, it is situated on the north coast of Hokkaido. The most famous part of Otaru is the canal (which I spent the afternoon in), but the aquarium have get a few attentions as well. Located right on the coast as well, they use it to their advantages, for not just the great views of the sea but also the exhibits for pinnipeds too.
After a 45 minute JR ride from Sapporo, another 30 minutes of bus take you to where the sky meets the sea….. and the aquarium as well. Outside the entrance you’re greet with two octopus divers (that’s octopus mascot but on a diver suit, it’s a bit weird), and when you enter you’re greeted with a non-ideal sea turtle exhibit. Not a good first impression huh. Although in this case, I believe both sea turtles are rescue individuals, as is the case with the one-armed green sea turtle in the main tank.
Aquarium main entrance:
Seeing the time is almost 11, we leave the aquarium and go elsewhere. Not really
. A special thing about Otaru is its divided into two parts. In the winter where the water is frozen cold, only the main aquarium part is open. When in summer though, a path leads you outside of the aquarium, down a slope and goes right next to the sea. You see, Otaru aquarium is divided into two distinct parts, the main aquarium and the marine mammal area, where the pinnipeds and penguins are located.
Marine mammals area:
The marine mammal area contains the following species:
Spotted seal
Stellar sea lion
Walrus
Largha seal
Bearded seal
Ringed seal (didn’t see them)
Humboldt penguin
As the exhibits are next to the sea, some of them actually allow water to flow in and out of the exhibit. This is a really nice plus for me, although the exhibits are far from ideal. The stellar sea lion shows, as the photo below showed, actually only have one sea lion doing it. (They have multiples in the exhibit next to it, not sure if they rotate it or they’re just retired. They got multiple sea lions doing shows before.)
The main reason we went down here first when its 11 is for the penguins. Once a day at 11.10 they let their penguins out and go out to the sea… sort of. There is another exhibit on the coast with no inhabitants, except for the 10 so minutes the penguins are out there. It takes a little walk from their usual exhibits to there, and of course penguins walking always garnish people’s attentions. The penguins very much enjoy their little time in a larger exhibit, and we very much enjoy the waddling and the swimming.
The other few exhibits in this area are the spotted seals, and a small indoor exhibit for ringed seals, another show area for the seals which I didn’t watch for good reasons, and small exhibits for bearded seals and walruses. Otaru keeps 3 walruses and 3 bearded seals, all of which are in too small exhibits. One of the walruses is a 2 years old active pup, and the other 2 are very much walrus size. The bearded seals are also in really small places, but at least I got some nice photos for them.
After the outdoor part, we went back inside of the main building. The main aquarium is a two floored standard aquarium that’s ok at best. After the sea turtles, there is the main tank with sharks and rays, and some small tanks on the other side. A large round tank containing harbor porpoise follows, which are a nice addition to it. Harbour porpoise are quite rare species as well. Although the tank can be bigger, they are very active and are fast swimmers, with youngsters and signs highlighting their breeding success.
Following that is 4 small tanks highlighting the rivers around Hokkaido, containing young Dolly varden trout, Siberian salamander, Sakhalin sickleback and swamp minnows. Small tank but well done, followed by a food themed exhibit containing scallops, shrimps and sardines in a kitchen.
After that is where you expect an ordinary aquarium to go. Medium size tanks around the perimeter of the walls. Despite this, the collection is still desirable, with the first tank having Sakhalin taimen and the tanks having salmons. After that is a large octopus, a fully indoor ASCO exhibit with an up-and-down to the other side of the wall, some other tropical fish tanks that you expect in your local aquarium, all leading towards an almost 360 degree tanks including all your favourite Japanese sea fishes.
From there we reached the 2nd floor, which although small does contain some highlights. There was a sea clione exhibit that stop having animals (for unknown reason), a well done coastal tank with mudskippers and crabs among other fishes, smaller tanks with jellyfishes and snailfishes (because its japan), finally ending with a small coral reef tank with your Nemos and Dorys. Across the room are also 3 amphibians, those being the Japanese Giant Salamander, Ezo Salamander and Japanese tree frog. A touch tank opposite of the gift shop and restaurant round off the whole building.
The aquarium ended with the dolphin show in another smaller building, which despite the name, also feature a south American sea lion (not exhibited in the marine mammal area). It’s what you expected from an old-school dolphin show, with the jumping, swimming, breaching on land, jump to the ball etc, and its those dolphin shows that probably isn’t in western world a lot nowadays. I’m not a big fan of those, and they are just bottlenose dolphins, so I wasn’t too keen of it. But at least my parents enjoy it so eh.
In the end, Otaru is a decent enough aquarium that has clearly seen better days. The aquarium will be celebrating its 50 anniversary next year in the current location, and it shows. It’s also not the biggest aquarium on Earth, and will probably be on the lower end of aquarium I’ve been. It is nice to see marine mammals living next to the sea, but also the facilities do seem aging and somewhat rusty for some (although that would also be due to the ocean wind and humidity etc.) There are some cool species being exhibited, but it is nowhere near some other Japanese aquarium. Don’t get it wrong, for the first foreign aquarium I’ve visited in 4 years, I did spend a nice ~2.5 hours there. But in its current days, it is a fine medium-quality aquarium that could do some renovation. And also bearded seal and harbor porpoise. Those are really cool.
