Monterey Bay Aquarium Monterey Bay Aquarium News

Outer Bay Refurbishing -- When?

Does anyone know WHEN the Outer Bay will be closing for refurbishing? I will be there next month, and I'm hoping I don't miss this amazing exhibit.
 
snowleopard said:
One of the world's truly great aquariums has opened its latest exhibit, and there are more than 15 species of seahorses and their kin for visitors to admire:

The Secret Lives of Seahorses | Monterey Bay Aquarium
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I was there for the "Media Day" introduction of this exhibit. It's truly a beautiful and interesting exhibit with lots of fun and educational interactives for learning more about seahorses. This great aquarium has done it again, creating another amazing exhibit. My ONLY complaint is that this is a "temporary" exhibit. It'll be there for about 3 years, I was told. Too bad it's not permanent.
 
Temporary exhibits are what bring the visitors back without spending money and land on expansion projects. A very smart concept, especially for those facilites that are rather landlocked.
 
Is the same temporary exhibit that was at the Baltimore Aquarium a few years ago? Or similar?
 
okapikpr said:
Temporary exhibits are what bring the visitors back without spending money and land on expansion projects. A very smart concept, especially for those facilites that are rather landlocked.
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Good point about temporary exhibits! I guess my frustration is simply as an author. We can't write much about these exhibits in our books because by the time our book is published, the exhibit is gone!

mweb08 said:
Is the same temporary exhibit that was at the Baltimore Aquarium a few years ago? Or similar?
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Not sure. Before I went to see it, I was expecting that it might be the same temporary Seahorse exhibit I recently saw at the Tennessee Aquarium, but it was actually quite different. So there's at least two of these temp Seahorse exhibits floating around.
 
Monterey has an in-house design group who develop all of their own "temporary exhibits", and as far as I know they have never "rented" one of the commercial traveling exhibits. While I mourn the loss of "Jellies as Art" (an all-time favorite exhibit), I am sure Monterey has done their usual superb job with the Seahorse display. Can't wait to see it.
 
snowleopard said:
Monterey Bay Aquarium

One of the world’s great aquariums, this highly regarded establishment is found in the tiny California coastal city of Monterey. The average attendance is 1.8 million (in a town of 35,000) and this is done without the benefit of typical, crowd-pleasing attractions. There are no killer whales, dolphins, seals or sea lions, and the only mammal species on display are the three different species of otter. However, the aquarium has many brilliant exhibits, a terrific children’s section, and wide, clean hallways to prevent overcrowding. It is often compared to John G. Shedd and Georgia Aquarium in a good-natured dispute over which of the three is North America’s greatest aquarium. Monterey Bay has won 4 AZA exhibit awards, and is a must-see for anyone remotely interested in aquatic life. The location is convenient for studying the coast of California for signs of sea otters, seals, sea lions and migrating grey whales, as they and other marine life can occasionally be seen swimming off in the ocean directly outside of the aquarium.
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I'm sorry to disagree with you on a certain point. The kelp forest and the outer bay with occasional white sharks, and oceanic sunfishes and hammerheads, also including large tuna fish, sure look like 'typical crowd pleasers' to me, certainly from an aquarium point of view. I often look at their website, and their webcams which transmit live footing from their exhibits ( I often saw the white sharks on them) and together with georgia aquarium this certainly looks like one of the best aquariums in the world.
 
Johnny said:
I'm sorry to disagree with you on a certain point. The kelp forest and the outer bay with occasional white sharks, and oceanic sunfishes and hammerheads, also including large tuna fish, sure look like 'typical crowd pleasers' to me, certainly from an aquarium point of view.
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I have to turn around a disagree with YOU! I've never seen white sharks or ocean sunfish at any other aquarium, and I've only seen hammerheads twice before, so these are NOT "typical crowd pleasers". Of course what that term was referring to was whales, dolphins, and pinnepeds, which Monterey has none of.
 
the great white is not typical, but they were the biggest crowd pleasers the aquarium ever had. not that hard since it were the only ones in captivity.

but in general I agree with you. allthough the aquarium has a lot of appealling exhibits and impressive species (big sharks are always awe-inspiring). this does not match up to marine mammals when it comes to crowd pleasing.
 
If you just consider marine animals to be crowdpleasers you would be right, but if you take a look at for example the georgia aquarium, the crowd comes for the major exhibit, the one with the whale sharks. In the netherlands blijdorp and burgers zoo drew the crowd in with ocean displays. In blijdorp king penguins, seaotters and sealions are part of the exhibit, but they do not make the big difference.

That is what I mean. Monterey bay has some spectaculair exhibits, so they certainly offer something to the crowd. And believe me, judging the kelpforest images, I really wish california wasn't that far from home........
 
Again, just in case any of you are interested, I'm doing a radio interview today (Monday) on KNRY, Monterey, California -- promoting our book. I'll be on the "Travel Talk" show, with host Celeste White, talking with her from 3:42pm (Pacific) to 3:55. I'm positive that Celeste will ask me a lot about her local Monterey Bay Aquarium, but also about other topics.

If you really want to, you can listen here:
KNRY Radio-Streaming
 
The aquarium is closing down its otter display in mid-September, and there is no confirmation of what will be the next brilliant exhibit constructed at this world-class destination. The African spotted-necked and Asian small-clawed otters (10 animals in total) along with many other aquatic species have been at the aquarium for just over 2 years, and there have been 4 million visitors during that time. Every 2-3 years the aquarium renovates a large gallery, and does anyone know what will be next? I'm assuming that there will be some time to change things over, and then perhaps in early 2010 a new gallery will open. I loved the sharks (over 20 different species) when I visited in 2006, the otters were a major source of entertainment when I visited in 2008, and next....?
 
Its to bad they are closing that down as it was very good but change is healthy as well

Wonder where the otters will go?
 
Thanks Ituri. "Hot Pink Flamingos" indeed!:)
 
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