Cairns Aquarium Cairns Aquarium

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CGSwans

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Apart from this photo posted by Hix - http://www.zoochat.com/673/sign-corner-cairns-cbd-396687/ - as far as I've noticed this major new development hasn't been mentioned on Zoochat at all.

Cairns Aquarium has begun construction (the most recent media update I can find is here - Fire service gives $50m Cairns aquarium green light | Business News | Business and Finance News | | Cairns Post ) and the anticipated opening time is July 2016. So a long way to go yet and it wouldn't surprise me if there's a hitch or two here and there. That article quotes a price of $50m, which I suspect is closer to the mark than the $35m I've seen elsewhere. The building itself looks stunning.

It's not often that Australia gets a major new entrant onto the local zoo and aquarium scene, so this is really exciting. In particular it's exciting to have a new aquarium on the east coast to loosen the grip of Merlin on the Australian aquarium scene a little. Hopefully this place is spectacularly successful financially and never falls into their hands.

The aquarium website is here - Cairns Aquarium | Buy Tickets | Official Website - and planned feature species appear to include freshwater sawfish, scalloped hammerheads and grey nurse sharks. Hopefully sea turtles and perhaps barracuda get a look in too. Naturally enough, being in Cairns, the focus is on the Great Barrier Reef and Coral Sea, but the Daintree Rainforest also looks like getting a gig too. Hopefully the theming and signage draw out the environmental issues that link the fate of these two World Heritage ecosystems.

The website is quite remarkably detailed, which gives me a decent level of confidence that this is going to happen. They've even gone so far as to outline the planned ticket prices - $37 for an adult puts it on par with the SEA Life Centres.

I've never been to Cairns but I might just be lured there in the second half of next year.
 
that's an extraordinarily detailed website for a place which hasn't even had the first stone of the building laid yet! It's a pricey ticket too. Sounds good though.

I wonder what the deal is with the Undersea World Aquarium already in Cairns. It doesn't have a website and I can barely find anything on it to say how it is going or if it even still exists. Apparently it has a 220,000 litre shark tank. It will scarcely be able to compete with the new aquarium when it opens though.
 
ah excellent work there. I have it on the Australian zoo list thread because it is mentioned on various Cairns tourism sites but I had never been able to find out much about it (by "much" I mean "anything"). Off the list it comes!
 
Zooplantman said:
Construction begins on Australia's first public aquarium built in 17 years - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
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It is great to see the nation of Australia (home to approximately 165 captive wildlife attractions) get a new aquarium. At a cost of $50 million and with 69 tanks it will be a strong candidate for the biggest and best aquatic facility in the nation. I've visited both the Sydney and Melbourne aquariums and this new one in Cairns will be slightly larger than either of them. The article claims that it will be "the second largest publicly accessible aquarium in Australia". What is #1? AQWA in Perth or perhaps the huge SeaWorld theme park on the Gold Coast?
 
snowleopard said:
It is great to see the nation of Australia (home to approximately 165 captive wildlife attractions) get a new aquarium. At a cost of $50 million and with 69 tanks it will be a strong candidate for the biggest and best aquatic facility in the nation. I've visited both the Sydney and Melbourne aquariums and this new one in Cairns will be slightly larger than either of them. The article claims that it will be "the second largest publicly accessible aquarium in Australia". What is #1? AQWA in Perth or perhaps the huge SeaWorld theme park on the Gold Coast?
Click to expand...

Biggest and best is, of course, relative
This amount, in the US, would simply pay for an addition to an existing facility.
For comparison, the entire Melbourne Aquarium cost more than this 10 years ago. (Both designed by the same firm)
 
Updates:
(EDIT: some of these links stopped going to open articles straight after I posted them)

No Cookies | The Cairns Post (May 2017): saying opening delayed until July 2017.

No Cookies | The Cairns Post (July 2017): saying opening delayed until September 2017.

No Cookies | The Cairns Post (August 2017): saying the opening date will be 12 September 2017 (that's yesterday).

Opening date postponed at Cairns Aquarium (five days ago): saying the opening will now be 19 September 2017.

THE Cairns Aquarium opening date has been pushed back again due to salt water systems that are not maturing as quickly as hoped.

It is the fifth time this year the aquarium has been forced to postpone its anticipated opening. The new launch date is now September 19.

“Every closed system aquarium around the world experiences this issue as they, like us, are at the mercy of the water chemistry, and there is no positive outcome in rushing this or taking shortcuts because it comes at the cost of the animals health," Senior Curator Ramon Barbosa said,

Cairns Aquarium general manager Julie Cullen said staff had been working 'virtually around the clock' the past fortnight to have the life support systems operating and the water chemistry at an optimum level to introduce the animals.

"Opening on September 19th will ensure that Cairns Aquarium is stocked to appropriate levels with additional animals being introduced each week as the water continues to stabilise," she said.

"The extra time allows the curatorial team to source additional animals and make the Oceanarium even more spectacular for opening day.

"To open without the stars of the show, the sharks and large marine animals, we run the risk of disappointing our guests."
 
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I wanted to visit the aquarium when visiting Cairns in July 2017. The person I asked about it at the hotel rolled her eyes and said that the aquarium's delayed opening was becoming a community embarrassment. Hopefully it will be worth the wait.
 
DavidBrown said:
I wanted to visit the aquarium when visiting Cairns in July 2017. The person I asked about it at the hotel rolled her eyes and said that the aquarium's delayed opening was becoming a community embarrassment. Hopefully it will be worth the wait.
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I think it's probably somewhat embarrassing to the operators as well, but it sounds like there's nothing that can be done about it.
 
The Cairns Aquarium is now open.

There's a couple of articles here:
VIDEO: Ribbon cutting marks official opening of Cairns Aquarium
No Cookies | The Cairns Post

This article is probably the best:
Cairns Aquarium a celebration of Far North biodiversity

THE much-anticipated opening of the $54 million, 7,800 square metre Cairns Aquarium with its three-level Cairns Aquarium & Reef Research Centre, is being described as a significant celebration after years of hard work, underpinned by grit, determination and collaborations spanning hundreds of people from dozens of specialist firms.

...

The aquarium boasts a number of firsts. It is the only attraction of its kind to display a number of critically endangered or rarely seen endemic species including the emerald tree monitors, freshwater sawfish, Jardine River painted turtles, ribboned pipefish and the Oceanarium exhibit’s highlight, a school of scalloped hammerhead sharks.

...

More than 15,000 aquatic animals, fish, plants, and other organisms are housed within 71 live exhibits in the two-level facility that has been thoughtfully curated with engaging interpretative material and tours, providing visitors with an immersive, two-and-a-half-hour journey through 10 life-like and recreated habitats.

...

A total of 10 North Queensland ecosystems and 71 habitats have been meticulously researched and replicated throughout the aquarium to ensure that visitors will enjoy a 2.5-hour immersive journey where they are guaranteed to see and interact with some of the some of the rarest and most elusive animals on earth.

One of the most memorable visitor highlights is destined to be the aquarium’s 300,000 litre Deep Reef exhibit, which is the first of its kind in Australia, and only one of three in the world.

This 10m-metre high x 8.5-metre-wide exhibit replicates the reef “drop off”, providing visitors with a view of an incredibly beautiful ecosystem coupled with the diversity of the marine creatures that call it home. This is a view that is usually reserved for the eyes of highly experienced scuba divers, far offshore.




There's a video here as well, which shows some of the interior:

 
Visitors are taken through 10 north Queensland ecosystems, where they can view an array of creatures ranging from baby crocodiles and snakes to hammerhead sharks and the endangered freshwater swordfish.
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The article says that the aquarium has "freshwater swordfish". Do they mean sawfish?!
 
The aquarium has a giant freshwater whiptail ray (endemic to northern Australia - I guess Urogymnus dalyensis). Link to the Facebook photos: Cairns Aquarium (25 October).

This morning our newest edition, a Freshwater Whipray joined our River Monsters exhibit, the largest freshwater display in Australia. After undergoing an acclimation process in quarantine for two weeks, Jessica was released into her new home where she was met by barramundi’s, mangrove jack and giant forktail catfish. Prior to her release, our team of aquarists trained Jessica to come to a target to feed, this will ensure she gets plenty of food in her new home. Endemic to Northern Australian, little is known about the Freshwater Whipray, the only Australian stingray capable of living in both fresh and brackish waters. Due to the remote distribution and difficulty of spotting these rays, most people will never have a chance to see this species in the wild. Which is why we are so excited to welcome her to Cairns Aquarium.
 
The aquarium now has the first of their two Freshwater Sawfish out on display. There's a short video on the link.

No Cookies | The Cairns Post

(The above link appears to be one of those ones which opens freely the first time you look at it, but the second time requires a "premium subscription", so try this one for the video: No Cookies | Daily Telegraph - nope, tried it again and that link also now goes to a subscription page. On the aquarium's Facebook page there are photos and a video.)

30 November 2017

There is no way you could call the newest inhabitant of Cairns Aquarium’s River Monsters tank an “eye-saw”.

The first of two freshwater sawfish, which have spent the past few weeks becoming acclimatised to the aquarium environment, was released yesterday into the 300,000-litre exhibit.

The two native creatures, with their distinctive saw-like snouts, will share space with a freshwater whipray, barramundi, mangrove jack and giant forktail catfish.

The male sawfish measures 1.17m in length and weighs 17.3kg, while its female partner is 1.36m long and weighs 8.4kg.

Aquarium general manager Julie Cullen said the likelihood of seeing the endangered species in the wild was “virtually non-existent” due to overfishing and depletion of their habitat across Northern Australia.

“We hope that people will become more aware of their conservation status as a result of seeing them, and hearing about them, at Cairns Aquarium,” she said.
 
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