Monterey Bay Aquarium
The aquarium's logo depicts giant kelp.
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Back view of the aquarium (on the Pacific Ocean)
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| Date opened | October 20, 1984 |
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| Location | Monterey, California, US |
| Coordinates | 36°37′06″N 121°54′05″W / 36.618253°N 121.901481°WCoordinates: 36°37′06″N 121°54′05″W / 36.618253°N 121.901481°W |
| No. of animals | 35,000 |
| No. of species | 623 (plants and animals in 2005) |
| Volume of largest tank | 1,200,000-US-gallon (4,500,000 l; 1,000,000 imp gal) |
| Annual visitors | 2.08 Million |
| Memberships | AZA |
| Website | www |
The Monterey Bay Aquarium (MBA) is a non-profit public aquarium located in Monterey, California, United States. The aquarium was founded in 1984 and is located on the site of a former sardine cannery on Cannery Row. It has an annual attendance of around two million visitors. It holds thousands of plants and animals, representing more than 600 species on display. The aquarium benefits from a high circulation of fresh ocean water which is obtained through pipes which pump it in continuously from Monterey Bay.
The centerpiece of the Ocean's Edge Wing, is a 28-foot-high (8.5 m), 333,000-US-gallon (1,260,000 l; 277,000 imp gal) exhibit for viewing California coastal marine life. In this exhibit, the aquarium was the first in the world to grow live California Giant Kelp. Visitors are able to inspect the creatures of the kelp forest at several levels in the building. The largest exhibit in the aquarium is a 1,200,000-U.S.-gallon (4,500,000 l; 1,000,000 imp gal) the Open Sea exhibit (formerly the Outer Bay), which features one of the world's largest single-paned windows. It is one of the few aquariums to successfully care for the ocean sunfish in captivity.
Sea life on exhibit includes stingrays, jellyfish, sea otters, sea horses, and numerous other native marine species, which can be viewed above and below the waterline. The Monterey Bay Aquarium is one of very few in the world to exhibit both bluefin and yellowfin tuna. For displaying jellyfish, it uses a Kreisel tank, which creates a circular flow to support and suspend the jellies. The aquarium does not house mammals other than sea otters that were rescued through its Sea Otter Program.
There had been a number of attempts to build an aquarium in the Monterey area dating back almost 100 years. In 1914 an aquarium was proposed to the city council by Frank Booth with a cost of $10,000. A bond issue was sponsored in an attempt to place an aquarium in the basement of the Pacific Grove Museum by Knut Hovden in 1925 and in 1944 an aquarium is suggested for Point Lobos State Reserve.
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Wikipedia