Vancouver Aquarium - renovated tropics zone

[Delphinus]

Just wanted to let everyone know that the Vancouver Aquarium has done a really cool job on their newly renovated "Tropic Zone" section. It's worth a look if you haven't seen it already.

Since my last visit last year, there has been a huge overhaul. Gone is the "pool blue" walls, the "aiptaisa exhibit" and the really dorky fake corals in the main opening fish tank (still fake corals, but much better quality). The anemone exhibit that was just overrun with aiptasia is replaced with an awesome live reef display. Fantastic aquascaping. Lots of mushrooms, heehee, but, the size of that tank, not really a big deal. Counted about 6 fighting conches in the sand bed (and I'm sure there are more)!

Unfortunately, there is no longer a clownfish in an anemone exhibit. But the improvements made far surpass that one thing.

When we were there last week (Thursday), one of the sharks in the shark tank gave birth to a live pup, right in front of everyone's eyes. It was amazing. Sadly, being that the birth was unexpected, the pup was eaten by one of the other sharks. So the aquarium staff were able to dispatch some divers, and cordone off a section of the tank in the net. The mother was given a section of the tank all to herself, so that in case she gave birth to a second pup, they would be able to net the baby out of harm's way. I do not know if there was a second pup born, if anyone heard anything about that could you please post an update here, I would like to know what came of that.

PS. I also want to applaud the aquarium for their marine mammal rescue effort. When I was on Hornby Island last week, we learned of an orphaned seal pup who had been on his own for four days, desperately looking for his mother who had been somehow killed. A local fisherman was able to net the pup, and he drove it to Comox airport where it was airlifted to the aquarium in Vancouver. When we were at the aquarium on Thursday I enquired about the state of the little guy (his cries of "Maw! Maw!" could be heard all over the Hornby-Denman ferry lineup) and I was very relieved to learn that he was in very good condition, he had suffered was some mild dehydration but he stands a very good chance of recovering to be released into the wild again. Needless to say, the aquarium gets my donation for the "Save our Seals" program. Great job, guys.

The only real downside to our trip was the smash and grab done on my car at Stanley Park. The perpetrator made of with nothing of any real value (shampoo, soap, my razor but he neglected to take the plug for it so when then battery is dead the razor is a paperweight), but, he managed to do $1600 worth of damage to my car (he couldn't break the windows so he tried prying all of them open... All four of my doors have pry marks and the car has to go the body shop to be repaired). To get home I had to stop in a Rona to get some duct tape and some plastic so I could at least drive on the highway back to Calgary without a missing window. There were three cars nailed, ours, and the one to our left and the one to our right. Whatcha gonna do. Unfortunately, these things do happen sometimes. It's in the hands of my insurance company now.

But definitely do pay the aquarium a visit (just don't leave anything of value in your car when you park at Stanley Park).