Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium

Seattle Times has posted a detailed article about the zoo's walrus care:

Why Tacoma’s aquarium keeps amassing more walruses

Despite the title it doesn't really answer any 'why' regarding the matter, though it does contain some interesting information - the use of metal crowns to protect their tusks, that underwater viewing is off because the walruses seem "agitated" by it, that they are now managed by a consortium and that they intend to send the animals to a facility more equipped to breed them eventually.
 
I found this piece of information that I missed from the end of last month that sounds like was sent to all members: Concept Design for a new Coral Reef exhibit for the South Pacific Aquarium. I'm not sure what part of the Aquarium this could fit it, maybe across the Shark Tank since I remember that wall being empty. It features the details for 3 new Reef Tanks, two small and one big. The species they're hinting towards include: Brain Coral / Porities spp. / Seriatopora spp. / Sarcophyton spp. / Lineatus Fairy Wrasse (Cirrhilabrus lineatus) / Laboute's Fairy Wrasse (Cirrhilabrus laboutei) / Lemon Peel Angel (Centropyge flavissima
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Does anyone know what month the South Pacific Aquarium will reopen in the spring? I’m planning a trip to the northwest, and I’m hoping to visit the zoo for the first time. I’m curious to know if the aquarium will be reopened by the second week of March.
 
rmforwildlife said:
Does anyone know what month the South Pacific Aquarium will reopen in the spring? I’m planning a trip to the northwest, and I’m hoping to visit the zoo for the first time. I’m curious to know if the aquarium will be reopened by the second week of March.
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No official date has been released yet, though they do mention their target time frame is late spring so if I had go guess maybe Late April - May. AFAIK I believe they're still in the conceptual design stage of the new exhibit, I haven't seen any construction news or photos besides the design drawing
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Speaking of the South Pacific Aquarium, it looks like the Aquarium may have revealed 2 new species that will make their debut when it reopens. Via their 2023 "Best Pictures" page on the site, at least one Whitetip Reef Shark (Triaenodon obesus) & one Honeycomb Ray (Himantura uarnak) now reside at the Aquarium. The current Sharks that are listed on the species page are the Blacktip Reef Sharks, Nurse Sharks, Sandbar Sharks, and one Zebra Shark (named Peanut) who were all residents before the Aquarium closed. (Which I guess means the Wobbegong (I forgot what species it was, though I think it was the Japanese Wobbegong (Orectolobus japonicus) is now gone? If true that kind of sucks since it was a treat to see him everytime he swam out but that was very rare so I guess it's understandable).

This is really exciting if true. The Elasmobranch collection in the PNW between us (Seattle Aquarium) and PDZA is going to be pretty awesome. It seems like there's been a hefty influx of Honeycomb Rays recently into AZA facilities which makes me wonder if a SSP is being setup if there's not one already.
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I visited today and here's some new info I found about the Aquarium:

New Name | A new sign out front mentions the South Pacific Aquarium will be called the "Tropical Seas Aquarium" once it opens. I'm not sure why but we'll probably get an explanation when it gets closer to opening day. There's also new murals that show corals and reef fish on the ceiling above Stingray Cove by the windows from what I could. Also big pallets of what look like Salt (though it could also be sand because I didn't see any sand in the tanks).
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Other news:
-Three new species of Fish have been added to the Japanese Spider Crab Tank, though they're unsigned at the moment. These include Longspine Snipefish (Macroramphosus scolopax), a species of Deepwater Scorpionfish, and a pair of some fish I'm unable to ID (they look similar to a cuskeel, see media page). This is pretty nice it adds more variety to the tank than just the crabs, and these species to my knowledge were not housed in the state before.

-The underwater viewing for the Walrus is still blocked off since the animals aren't used to it yet.
-The Harbor Seals and California Sea Lions are still rotating viewing time until they're comfortable enough to be housed together on view.
 

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Female Sumatran tiger coming from Australia!

Memphis Zoo has applied for a permit to import two tigers from Taronga Zoo in Australia:

1.0 Pemanah (17/01/2019) Clarence x Kartika
0.1 Mawar (17/01/2019) Clarence x Kartika

Mawar will then transfer to Point Defiance Zoo within 30-60 days of her arrival in Memphis.

Clarence’s mother is Kaitlyn (2007), who was imported by Australia Zoo from Indonesia in 2008.

Credit to @Elena for posting this in the Australasian Sumatran tiger thread; source: Regulations.gov
 
Zoofan15 said:
Female Sumatran tiger coming from Australia!

Memphis Zoo has applied for a permit to import two tigers from Taronga Zoo in Australia:

1.0 Pemanah (17/01/2019) Clarence x Kartika
0.1 Mawar (17/01/2019) Clarence x Kartika

Mawar will then transfer to Point Defiance Zoo within 30-60 days of her arrival in Memphis.

Clarence’s mother is Kaitlyn (2007), who was imported by Australia Zoo from Indonesia in 2008.

Credit to @Elena for posting this in the Australasian Sumatran tiger thread; source: Regulations.gov
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This is very exciting! The gene pool on NA would be much stronger
 
While there's no specific date yet, here's a good time frame for when the "Tropical Seas Aquarium" might be re-opening: RAW (Regional Aquatics Workshop) (Basically a convention for Public Aquariums and people in the industry to meet up and talk aquariums) will be held in Tacoma from May 5th to May 10th of this year. A spokesperson from the Aquarium mentions "were excited to show off the collection from both of our aquariums", so it looks like the opening of the new aquarium could correlate with the RAW convention that's going on. If I had to guess, at the earliest it could be late April but I feel like most likely it'll be the beginning of May.

Also if you go the website now, you're not able to access the species lists for the Tropical Seas Aquarium so it looks like they're working on overhauling that too at the moment.
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The Zoo has updated the website and the first list of species for the Tropical Reef Aquarium have been announced. It looks like they're still updating it as the smaller exhibits (most notably Stingray Cove and the new Living Reef don't have sections or mentions on here, I'd imagine they're still under construction as they wanted to focus on the larger habitats first). But these are the species that have been revealed so far:
The Blacktip Reef Sharks, Nurse Sharks, and Zebra Sharks make a return, while White Tip Reef Sharks and Grey Reef Sharks make their debut. Along with a "Charismatic" Potato Grouper (Epinephelus tukula) also makes it's debut. Big species of Stingrays (one we know is the Leopard Whiptail Ray) will also be in the tank, and other large Reef fish (I'd imagine the Jacks and Trevally are still around).
As for the Lagoon, it mentions Stingrays being apart of here too now which I'm thinking maybe they moved over some of the Blue Spotted Stingrays from Stingray Cove over, but we'll have to see.
The "Blue Hole" is also listed as a smaller exhibit now. This was a separate tank that was made to look like it was apart of the Shark Tank and most notably housed Squirrelfish, Soldier Fish, and Pinecone Fish, and a few others. Hopefully the Pinecone Fish come back at least.


So the 5 exhibits that will seemingly make up the Tropical Reef Aquarium are: The Outer Reef (Shark Tank), The Lagoon, The Living Reef, The Blue Hole, and Stingray Cove.
 
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The Zoo has announced that the Budgies will unfortunately be leaving at the end of this month. April 20th - 21st will be the last time to see the Budgies in the walk through aviary. They'll officially be off display on the 22nd.
The Zoo sites that over the years as the flock population has declined, they're not able to sustainably keep the population large enough for a guest experience.

No plans have been announced yet as to what the space will be turned into
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Piece of December 2023 News Not Mentioned:

On December 15th, the zoo announced they acquired a (0.1) ocellated eagle ray named Rayna from an unspecified aquarium in California which is on exhibit.

Meet the new queen of the aquarium! | Meet the new queen of the aquarium! Her wingspan is 6.2 feet wide. From nose to tail, she’s 13 feet long. She’s noticeably more prominent than our... | By Point Defiance Zoo & AquariumFacebook
Meet the New Queen of the Aquarium | Eagle Ray | Point Defiance Zoo

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On January 18th, the zoo announced that a (1.0) domestic dog (breed not specified) named Herald passed away at age 16 due to a decline in health.

Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium

On April 17th, the zoo announced that they acquired (0.0.2+?) giant shield mantises which will be on display in the Bugs Alive! program starting in early May.

Nope, aliens have not invaded your screen. You are watching one of our new Giant Shield mantises enjoy a fly treat. Meet this incredible insect in... | By Point Defiance Zoo & AquariumFacebook
 
Northwest_FIsh_Keeping said:
The Zoo has updated the website and the first list of species for the Tropical Reef Aquarium have been announced. It looks like they're still updating it as the smaller exhibits (most notably Stingray Cove and the new Living Reef don't have sections or mentions on here, I'd imagine they're still under construction as they wanted to focus on the larger habitats first). But these are the species that have been revealed so far:
The Blacktip Reef Sharks, Nurse Sharks, and Zebra Sharks make a return, while White Tip Reef Sharks and Grey Reef Sharks make their debut. Along with a "Charismatic" Potato Grouper (Epinephelus tukula) also makes it's debut. Big species of Stingrays (one we know is the Leopard Whiptail Ray) will also be in the tank, and other large Reef fish (I'd imagine the Jacks and Trevally are still around).
As for the Lagoon, it mentions Stingrays being apart of here too now which I'm thinking maybe they moved over some of the Blue Spotted Stingrays from Stingray Cove over, but we'll have to see.
The "Blue Hole" is also listed as a smaller exhibit now. This was a separate tank that was made to look like it was apart of the Shark Tank and most notably housed Squirrelfish, Soldier Fish, and Pinecone Fish, and a few others. Hopefully the Pinecone Fish come back at least.


So the 5 exhibits that will seemingly make up the Tropical Reef Aquarium are: The Outer Reef (Shark Tank), The Lagoon, The Living Reef, The Blue Hole, and Stingray Cove.
Click to expand...
The exhibit page on the website is slowly being updated overtime with new photographs and information as it gets closer to the opening date (Still unannounced).
However a new area of the exhibit now has a spotlight: 'Tropical Shallows' is the new name for the area that was once 'Stingray Cove'. The tank still seems to be the same, however replica mangroves and fake seagrass are apart of it. From the description it sounds like instead of Stingrays (that seemingly moved over to the Lagoon) you'll instead be able to touch "Tropical species of Shrimp, Sea Stars, Hermit Crabs, Urchins, and Snails". IMO I think that's a good call since now looking back at it, the Touch Tank is on the smaller side so moving the rays to a larger setup is nice.
The only area missing now is the Living Reef exhibit which will hopefully be uploaded soon, and with that, an opening date. (Edit: In a facebook reply, they say they'll be announcing it "very soon". )
 
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