DAY 21, Part I: Sunday, August 1st
On Sunday, August 1st, the Snowleopard family spent just over 3 hours at the National Aquarium in Baltimore, drove about 12 minutes, and then spent just over 3 hours at the nearby Maryland Zoo. It is quite convenient for a large city to have two major animal attractions so close to each other and both were enjoyable. The aquarium is excellent and one of the best I’ve seen, while the zoo is historic and tiny but still worth a visit. I’ll post separate reviews of the two establishments, and thus this can be considered “Part I”.
Zoo/Aquarium Review # 17: National Aquarium in Baltimore
National Aquarium’s website:
National Aquarium, Baltimore | Home
Aquarium Map:
http://www.aqua.org/downloads/pdf/Map_2009June.pdf
The National Aquarium in Baltimore, not to be confused with the miniscule, one-floor National Aquarium that I visited in Washington D.C. in 2008 (even though they are both run and operated under the Baltimore site’s management), is an excellent facility that is surely one of the best aquariums in North America. With an annual attendance of around 1.4 million it was not a surprise to see it packed on a Sunday morning, and we arrived exactly at opening time of 9:00 a.m. By around 10:00 the aquarium was totally jammed with visitors. It was nice to break up the never-ending stream of zoo visits with an aquarium, although it was much more difficult now that I’m a father to a wriggling little daughter.
Strollers are not allowed in the facility due to the many narrow walkways and escalators, and thus Kylie was put into a “snugli” where she was basically strapped to my chest in a kind of front-facing backpack. Being less than 11 months of age she has a tendency to want to turn around and escape at every moment, as well as bang on the glass whenever possible. My wife and I attempt to stop her from getting overly excited, as on this trip we let her out of the stroller more and more often to explore the various attractions. The highlight was when we were the very first visitors of the day in the Primate, Cat & Aquatic complex at the Cleveland Zoo, and Kylie was let loose on the carpeted floor for a long period of time. Several staff members kept joking that there was an escaped monkey, and I impressed them when I said that she was a species of mangabey. Ahh, zoo jokes! Enough dawdling with family stories…time for a full review.
The National Aquarium is constructed on 3 different structures, called “Glass Pavilion”, “Pier 3 Pavilion” and “Pier 4 Pavilion”. All 3 are excellent, and the aquarium is expertly designed so that there are no issues with wandering pathways or dead-end zones that I found plagued both the Buffalo and Philadelphia zoos. It is nice to have large loops in zoos and aquariums, and the National Aquarium actually has a unique system of rising escalators in the Pier 3 Pavilion. Inside the 3 massive pavilions the National Aquarium also has 3 different gift shops (one of them is huge), 2 different cafes, and a 4-D Immersion Theater that for an extra cost plays 15-minute shows.
THE BEST:
Pier 3 Pavilion – This was my family’s favourite pavilion, and the one area that is packed with the most number of animals. There is an entrance that features about 10 large “Bubble Tubes”, where there are water-filled tanks with bubbles shooting up through them. Interesting but not glamorous, and this area is mainly used for a photo opportunity by visitors. After that entrance there are 5 distinct levels.
Level 1: “Wings in the Water” features a single huge tank that is filled with these species: cownose ray, roughtail ray, bullnose ray, southern stingray, pelagic stingray, spiny butterfly ray, giant guitarfish, tarpon, zebra shark, bonnethead shark, blacknose shark and a single green sea turtle that is missing a front flipper. This tank is jammed with many species, which is a hallmark of the aquarium, and it is a large and intriguing tank that was thronged with visitors. Of note is that as a visitor rises up the 5 levels this large, mixed-species tank is constantly visible by looking over the edge of an escalator.
Level 2: “Maryland: Mountains to the Sea” only has 4 exhibits, and they all shine a spotlight on local critters found in the state of Maryland. Allegheny Stream, Tidal Marsh, Coastal Beach and Atlantic Shelf are 4 large tanks that resemble museum exhibits, as there are expansive murals in the background and a well-detailed animal-filled foreground. This area is nothing special and rather small.
Level 3: “Surviving through Adaptation” has about 4 large exhibits and lots of smaller ones, and it focuses on sea creatures like electric eels that have cool adaptive qualities. Another level that is only average.
Level 4: “Sea Cliffs, Kelp Forest” Pacific Coral Reef, Amazon River Forest” is an excellent section with some fantastic exhibits. There are puffins and other sea birds in Sea Cliffs, a small Kelp Forest exhibit (puny in comparison to the awesome, overwhelming Kelp Forest complex at Monterey Bay), a very nice but average Pacific Coral Reef tank and the best section by far is the Amazon River Forest. It pales in comparison to “Amazon Rising” at Shedd Aquarium, but seeing pygmy marmosets, caiman, giant amazon river turtles and many other species of turtles (there are seemingly hundreds of turtles at this aquarium) and fish make the 2 enormous tanks borderline brilliant. The views from the Harbour View Café are spectacular, and a reminder of how the aquarium has a terrific location on the Baltimore waterfront.
Level 5: “Upland Tropical Rain Forest, Hidden Life” features a lush but disappointingly empty walk-through jungle. There was a two-toed sloth slumbering in a tree, a few scarlet ibises and other birds, but the golden lion tamarins were not in sight and for the most part we were glancing around at a beautiful but strangely silent jungle.
A great section of the Pier 3 Pavilion is the exit, as there is a 5-storey walkway that winds around a massive “Atlantic Coral Reef”, horseshoe-shaped tank that contains some enormous fish. On the bottom level is the “Open Ocean” tank that has a number of sharks prowling the depths. There are nurse sharks, sand tiger sharks, sandbar sharks and other huge sharks in this tank.
Glass Pavilion – This huge pavilion is spectacular on the outside, and just as amazing on the inside. It is called “Animal Planet Australia: Wild Extremes” and features the AZA Best Exhibit award-winning Aussie zone. The entire structure cost $75 million, and is only about 4 years old. A crashing waterfall and superbly designed rockwork precipices tower over visitors as they cross a bridge and stroll through the cavernous hallways that make up the area. The only downside is that this zone ends sooner than it should and is not quite as large as it first appears, but there is a long list of amazing creatures that are difficult to spot outside of Oz. I managed to list a number of the animals below, but I omitted numerous fish species and probably a few birds as well.
There are free-flying birds such as eastern rosellas, northern rosellas, sulfur crested cockatoos, galahs, rainbow lorikeets and cockatiels, and jam-packed tanks with species often rarely seen in North American zoos. Here is a partial list: various finches, kookaburras (free-flying), frilled lizard, northern death adder, Merten’s water monitor, central bearded dragon, Hosmer’s skink and at least 2 other types of skink, spiny-tailed monitor, eastern carpet python, water python, eastern water dragon, freshwater crocodile, black-headed python, northern snake-necked turtle, soft-shelled snake-necked turtle, pig-nosed turtle, Northern Australian snapping turtle, Jardine river turtle, Northern red-faced turtle, saw-shelled turtle, Mary River turtle and fish such as gulf saratoga, barrumundi, sooty grunter, yabby, tailed sole, western rainbowfish, sleepy cod, giant gudgeon, freshwater whipray, lesser salmon catfish, black catfish, toothless catfish and shovel-nosed catfish.
THE AVERAGE:
Pier 4 Pavilion – This area is very nicely designed, with a walkway from the first two pavilions, but the large dolphin pool is something that I’ve seen a few times before. By being AZA members we got into the $30 aquarium for free (and we’ve received admittance for free at practically every single zoo on the trip so far) but we did pay $3 each to watch the 25-minute dolphin show. It was very educational, with 2 large screens that diverted the attention of onlookers, but also quite enjoyable. Perhaps the best dolphin show that I’ve seen (and I think that I’m up to about 6-7 now) is the one at the Indianapolis Zoo, as that show is top-notch and also has the added bonus of the world’s only Dolphin Dome.
Other than the dolphin show there is underwater viewing of that species, a small children’s discovery gallery and “Jellies Invasion: Oceans Out Of Balance”, a small but well-done jellyfish gallery.
THE WORST:
Nothing!
OVERALL:
The National Aquarium in Baltimore is definitely worth visiting, and it is one of the finest aquariums that I’ve ever seen. I’ve given it a fairly glowing review here, but in all honesty it is most definitely not as impressive as America’s “Big 3” of Shedd, Georgia and Monterey Bay. Those 3 are all a cut above Baltimore, and they are so magnificent that in my opinion there really is no comparison. However, Baltimore does have its fans and once I visit Tennessee Aquarium this week perhaps I’ll figure out how close Tennessee and Baltimore are to each other in terms of quality. In terms of great North American aquariums it is interesting at how spread out they are geographically. There is Monterey Bay on the southwest coast, Baltimore on the northeast coast, Georgia inland and near the southeast coast, Dallas World Aquarium in Texas, and Shedd beneath the Great Lakes. The northwest even has Vancouver, which advertises itself as the 5th largest aquarium in North America. It seems as if wherever you live in the United States there is a world-class aquarium within a few hours from your hometown.
I'll address some of your comments on Maryland Zoo and National Aquarium:
