Yesterday I visited the National Marine Life Center (NMLC) in Bourne, Massachusetts, for the very first time. This is a small nature center and animal rehabilitation facility that is focused on rescuing and releasing Harbor and Gray Seals during summertime, and hypothermic sea turtles in the winter. Unfortunately, the rescued animals are not displayed, and the only real live animals that visitors can see in-person here are a pair of Eastern Box Turtles who were confiscated from wildlife traffickers. But while the rescued marine animals cannot be viewed in person, there is at least a live camera feed that shows the animals’ activities.
The limited species count means that NMLC is obviously not an aquarium; instead it is more of a mini-museum and it primarily features standard displays about sea turtles and marine mammals. I will say that the displays were fairly average (just your regular taxidermy, skeletons, etc), but the real highlight was the insights I gained from the staff. I had a private tour, and if I was alone I would have probably seen the entire center in 15 minutes, but speaking with the great people who worked here extended my visit to an hour.
I will say that the National Marine Life Center is definitely a small little place, and while it is a decent institution it also isn’t somewhere I’d suggest going out of your way to visit. There obviously isn’t a live-animal draw here, and while they do have museum displays, they are decades old and falling apart and aren’t as intriguing as those in nearby places like the Cape Cod Museum of Natural History and Aquarium or the New Bedford Whaling Museum or all the places connected to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute. The future, however, may be brighter, as I was told there are plans to modernize the whole place to be more museum-quality and construction is beginning as we speak. The new project will also include a sea turtle viewing section, which is very exciting as it means there will be more species visible in-person and not just via TV screens.
If you do decide to go to NMLC, I would recommend calling ahead of your visit. One downside of this place is that their website is very unreliable, and for months it said they were closed even though they had apparently already opened for the season. It would also probably be more worth it to visit later rather than sooner, since the construction will hopefully improve the nature center a lot.
Beyond the turtles and the educational renovations, a worker also mentioned that in the early 2000s there was a $50 million masterplan that included an ambitious cetacean rescue center (and that’s why there is a dolphin, along with a seal and a sea turtle, on NMLC’s logo). Considering how many financial issues Massachusetts zoos and aquariums consistently go through, it is easy to see why those grand cetacean plans were abandoned, exciting as they may have been. The current goal of modernizing the museum displays and adding a place to view the sea turtles is a much more modest one, and I hope that I can revisit this thread in a year or two to share how that turned out.
For years NMLC has had an empty Zoochat gallery section, and I have now uploaded around 20 pictures of the place if anyone is interested: https://www.zoochat.com/community/media/categories/national-marine-life-center.1548/
The limited species count means that NMLC is obviously not an aquarium; instead it is more of a mini-museum and it primarily features standard displays about sea turtles and marine mammals. I will say that the displays were fairly average (just your regular taxidermy, skeletons, etc), but the real highlight was the insights I gained from the staff. I had a private tour, and if I was alone I would have probably seen the entire center in 15 minutes, but speaking with the great people who worked here extended my visit to an hour.
I will say that the National Marine Life Center is definitely a small little place, and while it is a decent institution it also isn’t somewhere I’d suggest going out of your way to visit. There obviously isn’t a live-animal draw here, and while they do have museum displays, they are decades old and falling apart and aren’t as intriguing as those in nearby places like the Cape Cod Museum of Natural History and Aquarium or the New Bedford Whaling Museum or all the places connected to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute. The future, however, may be brighter, as I was told there are plans to modernize the whole place to be more museum-quality and construction is beginning as we speak. The new project will also include a sea turtle viewing section, which is very exciting as it means there will be more species visible in-person and not just via TV screens.
If you do decide to go to NMLC, I would recommend calling ahead of your visit. One downside of this place is that their website is very unreliable, and for months it said they were closed even though they had apparently already opened for the season. It would also probably be more worth it to visit later rather than sooner, since the construction will hopefully improve the nature center a lot.
Beyond the turtles and the educational renovations, a worker also mentioned that in the early 2000s there was a $50 million masterplan that included an ambitious cetacean rescue center (and that’s why there is a dolphin, along with a seal and a sea turtle, on NMLC’s logo). Considering how many financial issues Massachusetts zoos and aquariums consistently go through, it is easy to see why those grand cetacean plans were abandoned, exciting as they may have been. The current goal of modernizing the museum displays and adding a place to view the sea turtles is a much more modest one, and I hope that I can revisit this thread in a year or two to share how that turned out.
For years NMLC has had an empty Zoochat gallery section, and I have now uploaded around 20 pictures of the place if anyone is interested: https://www.zoochat.com/community/media/categories/national-marine-life-center.1548/