Aquarium visitors walk through water

Sunday, May 09, 1999

Aquarium visitors walk through water

A modern aquarium needs a signature; Newport's will be the clear tunnels, with fish all around

Tom Heekin Jr., a partner in the Newport Aquarium, swims with the fishes.
(Steven M. Herppich photo)
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NEWPORT — Visitors to the Oceanic Adventures Newport Aquarium won't need scuba gear, but the hope is that they will feel completely immersed in the experience.

“We try to involve all the senses where we can,” General Manager John Tighe said of the attraction, which is set to open Saturday.

“Even the floor coverings are themed,” he said. “In the World Rivers gallery, the concrete floor looks like a riverbank. In the Shore Gallery, it looks like seashore.”

All aquariums, from the earliest at Coney Island in Brooklyn in 1896 and Chicago's Shedd in 1933, to the newest crop including Ripley's in Myrtle Beach and the Tennessee Aquarium at Chattanooga, invite people to see fish and other animals in seemingly natural settings.

Mark Estrada and son David, 2, of Covington enjoy a close-up during the member's-only preview Saturday.
(Jeff Swinger photo)
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As newer aquariums are built, owners try to take the experience a step further to entice people to keep coming back. Everybody has a gimmick — from moving walkways to mammal pavilions.

In Newport, visitors will descend into darkness via escalator and into a colorful world of fish enhanced with theme music and brightly lit tanks.

“A lot of aquariums have a large glass front to let in a lot of sunlight, or visitors go into a gallery to see the exhibits and then come back out in sunlight,” Mr. Tighe said. “We think that takes away from the mystery and brings (visitors) back into reality.”

Haley Temple, 4, and sister Madison, 2, sit in the bubble window of the shark tank.
(Jeff Swinger photo)
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The entrance doors are even done to a slightly smaller scale, with tinted glass, to reduce sunlight in the lobby.

All through the facility, visitors will see beautifully detailed murals by Eric Henn of nearby Franklin, Ohio, who has created scenes to match the various oceans and streams of the world.

Just inside the front door, guests will be surrounded by a coral reef scene, followed by a 120-foot-long Arctic mural which complements the 21-foot humpback whale that appears to be breaching from icy water to the ceiling.

In with the new
Since the early 1900s, aquariums have sought to attract, entertain and educate people about fish, rivers and oceans, starting with very basic fish tanks with a single viewing area and advancing to the seamless acrylic tunnels that provide a 360-degree panorama in the Newport Aquarium.

Juan Sabalones, the director of husbandry at Newport Aquarium (also known as the Big Fish Guy), helped open the National Aquarium in Baltimore. A noted shark expert, he is also something of an aquarium historian.

“Aquariums started out as rich people's amusements,” he said. “The old-style aquariums were like art galleries. Animals were displayed on walls, in effect. Gradually they became more interactive.”

The aquarium boom in the United States began, he thinks, with the large attractions such as Baltimore's and the impressive Monterey Bay Aquarium on the California coast. These and others like them, including the Tennessee Aquarium at Chattanooga, stress education as well as entertainment.

Ripley's, of Believe It Or Not museum fame, opened an aquarium at Myrtle Beach, S.C., in 1997. A number of new aquariums will be opening through next year, including another Ripley's at Gatlinburg, Tenn., by Christmas, and in Charleston, S.C., in 2000.

“They all work to involve the visitor and attract people,” Mr. Sabalones said. “We all have to compete with cable TV, videos, movies and other amusement parks. To compete, you have to have the one thing they can't do — live participation.”

Signature features
Each aquarium has its own unique style, a signature exhibit or series of exhibits that set it apart.

• Chicago's Shedd, one of the oldest aquariums in the U.S., boasts an Oceanarium, a marine mammal pavilion that features beluga whales, dolphins, Alaskan sea otters and harbor seals in a recreated Pacific Northwest coastal setting.

The Oceanarium, which opened in 1991, was added to the original 1930 aquarium, which now offers such exhibits as a sea horse display and a Caribbean reef.

• Ripley's has what they claim is the world's longest moving walkway, 330 feet long, carrying visitors through the Dangerous Reef exhibit, which includes sharks. There is also a large atrium Discovery Center, including a touching pool and education presentations.

“At the end of each gallery, you come back into the central court and the sunlight,” Mr. Tighe said. “I think that takes away from the mystery of the visit ... brings you back to reality. We have tried to avoid that in Newport.”

• At Chattanooga, there is an emphasis on fresh-water animals, including the Mississippi Delta and Rivers of the World exhibits. Linked to the aquarium is the Southeast Aquatic Research Institute, which does environmental research and provides an educational outpost.

• Aquarium of the Americas in New Orleans, part of the Audubon Institute, features a Caribbean Reef exhibit with an acrylic tunnel, a Gulf of Mexico exhibit, a Mississippi River exhibit and a display of two warm-climate penguins.

• The Newport Aquarium will attempt to please its audiences with a continuous string of clear acrylic tunnels, not only connecting each of the major themed galleries but also providing a much wider viewing area of the fish in their natural habitats.

Some 50 sharks will share a 380,000 gallon tank with hundreds of other fish that normally swim with them in the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico. Portions of the tank are deeper to permit sharks and fish to swim under the tunnel, and the floor is clear acrylic to give visitors the sense that they are walking on water.

After spending several weeks watching the 16 King penguins become acclimated to their new home and to one another at the Newport facility, Mr. Sabalones has concluded that the display will likely be one of the most popular.

“Every time you walk by, you see something you didn't see before,” he said. “The way they interact with each other is almost hypnotizing, and I think our customers are going to love it.”

Keys to success
The aquariums in Chicago, Myrtle Beach, Chattanooga and New Orleans measure their success through attendence — averaging more than a million customers each year. That is a benchmark not lost on Newport's organizers.

“Based on the demographic area and what other aquariums have done, we are anticipating first-year attendance over 1 million people,” aquarium public relations manager Lisa Popyk said.

She said the facility is prepared to handle up to 10,000 visitors a day during peak times.

The aquarium administration has been pleasantly surprised with the number of people who have taken advantage of the annual membership offers. As of this past week, there were over 16,000 members enrolled for the special charter offer of 15 months instead of 12.

“We set a goal of 20,000 members in our first year, but we didn't rally expect to hit that mark,” Ms. Popyk said. “We're really impressed with the response, and now that 20,000 figure appears to be well withing reach.”

For the first six months of operation, the Newport aquarium will be continually adding animals to its exhibits. And visitors will see fish from different angles and positions, or perhaps during a feeding session, on subsequent visits.

Mr. Tighe said several other aquariums share rotating exhibits. But he thinks Newport has enough to work with for the time being.

For example, the alligator pool is rather shallow now, but with simple modifications the water level could be raised to add fish that live with alligators in the wild.

The Newport aquarium also has a pool where people can touch horseshoe crabs, starfish and other tidal pool animals.



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