Photos by MARY CIECEK/Daily Bruin Senior
Staff Children peer through the glass at a shark in one of the
exhibits at the Long Beach Aquarium of the Pacific.
By Barbara McGuire
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
The Long Beach Aquarium confirms “The Little
Mermaid’s” mantra: it is better down where it’s
wetter.
Housing over 12,000 ocean critters in 17 major habitats and 30
smaller exhibits, the Long Beach Aquarium not only gives visitors a
look at the wide variety of creatures that live in the Pacific
Ocean, but also demonstrates how fun and unique these creatures can
be.
The design of the two-story aquarium, which just opened in June
1998, was inspired by the breaking waves of the Pacific and
consists of three major exhibit galleries, and a gallery whose
theme changes every 20 months. Each gallery attempts to divide the
immense ocean into appropriate, discrete categories.
“Our aquarium is divided into three different regions:
tropical, which would be warm water, Southern California, which
would be temperate, sort of in between, and the Northern Gallery,
which is cold water,” said Akira Kanezaki, an aquarist who
has worked at the aquarium since before its opening.
Each gallery features strikingly different animals, as well as
special surprises that may leave a visitor wandering around in
amazement for hours. The Southern California/Baja Gallery, for
instance, contains rescued and rehabilitated seals and sea lions
that visitors can watch being fed at various times throughout the
day.
 From left to right, Nicolas Medellini,
age 5, Megan Landes, 7, Brynne
Hustrulid, 6, and Tristan Landes, 4,
examine the Long Beach Aquarium’s "petting zoo" of tide pool
creatures.
The Tropical Pacific Gallery offers interactive exhibits, such
as the Tropical Reef Habitat. Here, visitors can watch scuba divers
feeding the fish and through special microphones actually interact
with the divers. An aquarium volunteer serves as a mediator,
explaining what the diver is doing as well as relaying audience
questions to the divers.
The Tropical Gallery is also home to another unique experience,
featuring groups of brilliantly colorful, living coral.
“We have a live coral exhibit, and that’s a big deal
because corals are actually very difficult to keep in captivity,
whereas, in all these other exhibits, all the coral there is
fake,” Kanezaki said. “This one is really on its own,
it really gets babied and is one of our star exhibits.”
Such displays and exhibits are what make the aquarium both
educational and entertaining. Instead of simply showing the various
sea creatures in a tank with a descriptive identification card, a
visitor might find fun and quick games or even videos that help to
further explain what is being presented.
“What we try to do with all our different exhibits is sort
of present different animals, or focus on a particular
animal,” Kanezaki said. “There’s a few different
approaches that we can take; for example, we’ll talk about
camouflage, how animals blend in with their surroundings, and
we’ll have accompanying graphics to try to describe
that.”
The Aquarium even takes the educational part of experience a
little further, offering weekend and evening classes for preschools
to adults.
“We have the “˜Muffins to Morays’ program and
the “˜Appetizers to Abalone’ program, and those are for
18 and older,” said Joel Cassara, Education Specialist at the
Aquarium.
“You come in for a couple of hours with one of our
educators and you either come in for breakfast in the morning, with
the “˜Muffins to Morays,’ or with the “˜Appetizers
to Abalone,’ you come in the evening and have some
appetizers, and learn about that particular subject,” he
continued.
The class schedules are changed regularly both in an attempt to
keep things interesting for the educators, as well as to keep the
visitors entertained and coming back. According to Cassara, though
the Aquarium has a wide variety of class topics to choose from,
ranging from jellies to sharks, they always try to keep the content
related to something they actually house.
“This is a real good hands-on, a real good visual
experience for anyone, from kindergarten to adults,” Cassara
said. “You don’t get to see this stuff
everyday.”
With it’s own restaurant, Café Scuba, theater and
learning center, in addition to all the exhibits and touch
stations, the Long Beach Aquarium can keep visitors busy for hours
as they learn about the mysterious and amazing creatures of the
sea.
“It’s a great place to spend a day because you can
really spend three or four hours here,” said Kanezaki.
“I think it’s just a really good experience to get to
see a lot of these things up close that you normally
wouldn’t, especially from other geographical
areas.”
“Everyone should come just because they don’t
realize how much stuff there is out there,” he continued.
“That’s the whole idea, it’s part of our mission
statement, we want to instill a sense of wonder, and that’s
really what I see happening.”
AQUARIUM: The Long Beach Aquarium is located at 100 Aquarium Way
in Long Beach. Admission is $14.95 for adults and hours of
operation are from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily. For more information
call (562) 590-3100 or visit www.aquariumofpacific.org.