Originally posted by Butch103
Are you able to give those of us who really don't know about the aquaium a brief description of what we were about to lose ?? Or perhaps a website link ?? Thanks
<smacks forehead>
Duh, sorry about that!
http://www.oceanjourney.org/
One of its problems is that it calls itself an aquarium. It isnt. I dont know a good name for it but something along the lines of Aquatic environments and the surrounding ecosystem would be a better description, but lousy for marketing.
Its completely different from any other aquarium Ive been to (though I admit I havent been to many). Most aquariums have groups of exhibits, for example Monterey Bay (
http://www.mbayaq.org/) has the outer bay and deep dwellers and various other exhibits that you walk between.
Colorado Ocean Journey has the name Journey in it for a reason. It follows two rivers on opposite sides of the earth from their headwaters to the sea.
First it follows the Colorado River from high in the Rocky Mountains with the cutthroat trout and flannel mouth suckers through it gradual descent to the sea of Cortez. You encounter beaver ponds with sunfish and pumpkinseeds and, this is where the aquarium name fails and surrounding ecosystem comes in, river otters.
It proceeds through the large reservoirs with huge catfish, rainbows and pike and then crosses the desert with a flash flood exhibit, pupfish, rattlesnakes and a tortoise. Finally it ends at our second largest exhibit, the Sea of Cortez. Throughout the journey from the headwaters to the Sea of Cortez, the visitor is immersed in the environment At the headwaters rock and ice surround you, and the air is quite cold. In the beaver pond area you have trees and plants. As you cross the desert you return to rock and the temperature is quite warm until you arrive at the tropical Sea of Cortez.
Then you travel half way around the world to the island of Sumatra and follow the Kampar river from its headwaters to the Pacific Ocean. Starting with some of the classical tropical fish like the Tiger Barbs and such, to Giant Gourami, Fire Eels and Clown Knifefish. Again the aquarium name fails because we exhibit a mammal that is commonly found along the river because it actually uses the cool water to help regulate its body temperature we have three Sumatran Tigers! You can usually spot the first time visitors at this exhibit because they thought they were just going to see fish, and the three tigers come as a complete surprise, and you can see it in their faces!
[Heres a poor picture of our two boys, Bali on the left and Java on the right, named for the Bali and Java species that are now both extinct on their respective islands
http://www.underctek.com/open/COJ/balijava.jpg]
The Kampar then moves through the mangrove forest and into the brackish water zone where we have a horseshoe crab touch exhibit, followed by the coral lagoon, the Kampars termination in the Pacific Ocean. Our Depths of the Pacific exhibit is our largest at about 1/3 of a million gallons and 22 feet deep at its deepest point. This is the one I get to dive with its four species of sharks four Nurse sharks, two Zebra sharks, two Gray Nurse/Sandtiger/Ragged Tooth sharks and two Sandbars.
Outside on the plaza our current changing exhibit is called What Lurks Beneath and shows the life youd find off a Monterey peer. It has a more in your face environmental message than the rest of COJ in that is also shows the garbage like cans, bottles and even a broken toilet that you might find dumped off a pier due to our out of sight, out of mind mentality.
Lastly, on the first floor we have our permanent California Sea Otter exhibit with Taylor and Gracie, who are both big hits. If you look up the word cute in the dictionary youll find a picture of a sea otter to give an example of the word.
Whew! Hope this helps you get an idea of what COJ is all about!
Roak
