The Aquarium of the Pacific will showcase its newest members—baby cuttlefish, rescued juvenile sea otters, tiny sea jellies and baby sharks—in the aptly titled exhibit “Babies!” opening Friday, May 27.
“Everybody loves cute little babies, right? But then this [exhibit] also gave us a chance to highlight a lot of the behind-the-scenes programs we have going on at the Aquarium,” said Director of Pacific Visions Fahria Qader, who’s worked on the exhibit over the past year.
Those behind-the-scenes initiatives include the Aquarium’s breeding program, which was the first to breed zebra sharks using artificial insemination. The exhibit will educate attendees on the Aquarium’s past younglings, such as Shelby the harbor seals’ three pups and Magellanic penguin chicks.
Their care, and that of other species, will be highlighted in videos and displays throughout the gallery—from hand-feeding newly hatched birds to round-the-clock care for sea otter pups.
In the Northern Pacific Gallery, visitors can take in the antics of Ryder, an orphaned sea otter pup who joined the Aquarium last year. He’s been paired with matriarch sea otter and longtime Aquarium resident Betty to help teach him skills he can use once he’s released into the wild.
Most of the “Babies!” exhibit, however, will take place in the Pacific Visions—the newest wing of the Aquarium, which opened in 2019.
The space will feature different tanks where visitors can view various species at different points in their life cycle. In the “jelly lab,” staff will show visitors different stages of the comb jelly life cycle, starting from a microscopic view that will be displayed on a monitor.
“[The exhibit] was a good chance to kind of highlight the sort of babies that we have helped bring into the world,” Qader said, explaining that the neonates will also be used as a vehicle for education about conservation and research.
For example, the Aquarium has taken in mountain yellow-legged frog tadpoles, which are critically endangered, to raise and then release into the wild. Along with a jelly lab, the exhibit will feature a young desert tortoise, a threatened species under the 1990 Federal Endangered Species Act.
“At the end of the day, all these things are happening because of climate change, all this habitat destruction, the wildfires, the acidification happening in the coral reefs, and we’re all connected to this,” Qader said. “So it’s really incumbent on all of us, if we want to see these babies thrive, we have to help.”
Since the exhibit will be on display until April 2023, the subjects in the exhibits will be switched out as they enter new stages of their adolescence.
“Babies can’t stay babies forever,” Qader said. “It’s a good reason to visit this exhibit multiple times, because you’ll see different species throughout the year.”
The “Babies!” exhibit will open to the public on May 27. Tickets to the Aquarium of the Pacific, located at 100 Aquarium Way, cost $36.95 per adult and $26.95 for children.
