Crews used large nets, water-filled containers and box trucks to relocate hundreds of river otters, sea turtles, manatees, penguins and sharks to their new home: Mote Marine Laboratory & Aquarium.
Over the past couple of months, the marine animals were removed from the hard-to-reach island and relocated to a brand new center, where Mote believes they would be able to live in more authentic habitats and make it easier for the public to learn about marine sciences.
The Mote Science Education Aquarium (SEA), just east of Sarasota, is to open to the public today.
Photo: AP
“We have created new authentic habitats for all our species of marine life, including a massive manatee habitat, and homes for some of our newest animals, like the giant Pacific octopus and our penguins,” said Kevin Cooper, vice president for communications and strategic Initiatives at Mote.
“We are also adding more opportunities to learn about marine science for our guests, schoolchildren and adult learners, and offering new opportunities for citizen scientists to participate in marine science through outreach,” he said.
The move was prompted by logistical challenges. It was increasingly challenging for visitors to make their way across the bridges from the mainland to the facility on Sarasota’s City Island where it had been for 45 years. So it made sense to move the aquarium and education centers farther east, while keeping the research portion of the facility on the barrier island.
Photo: AP
In July, Mote closed to the public to prepare so the transition could begin, and in August, crews started moving the animals to the new facility.
Mote educated upwards of 350,000 guests each year and it is expected to double that in the new center, Cooper said.
The new facility cost US$130 million to build.
As each animal has distinct habitat needs, it took time to make sure the habitats at the new Mote SEA facility had the appropriate water chemistry and microbial communities before the animals arrived.
“In the process of that relocation, each different species requires a different type of relocation techniques in order to move them from one facility to another,” said Evan Barniskis, associate vice president for Mote. “When moving sharks and fish, you have to do so in water with plenty of oxygen and filtration on it.”
They moved many of the fish and sharks at night, when there was less traffic. The manatees required air-conditioned box trucks that are specifically designed for manatee relocations. Mote has a team devoted to picking up stranded manatees and to rehabilitate them.
“The otters are a little bit simpler because they have specially designed cages that are kind of similar to those you would put a dog or a cat in,” Barniskis said.
The staff monitored each animal during the journey to the new center. Once at the new site, aquarists and veterinary staff oversaw the acclimation process, as they gradually introduced each animal to the new environment.
“With a transfer operation of this scale, it takes rigorous monitoring, strict protocol adherence, complex coordination and the highest standard of care,” Cooper said. “We consistently monitor each animal for any health or behavioral abnormalities throughout the process and thereafter to ensure successful acclimation.”
“Within this facility, we will have over 400 different species that will be made up of several thousands of individual animals,” Barniskis said.
Mote SEA is dedicated to marine science, education and immersive public experiences, officials said. It contains three STEM teaching labs: biomedical, microbiology and immunology; marine and coastal ecology; and ocean engineering, technology, robotics and sensory development. It will also provide free hands-on experiences for some 70,000 students from Sarasota and Manatee county schools.
Mote, founded in 1955 by Eugenie Clark, also operates coral nurseries in the Florida Keys that are helping restore damaged reefs.
“I think the most important thing we want our visitors to take away is a better understanding of marine science and how Moat Marine Laboratory contributes to expanding the knowledge of the marine environment to the world,” Barniskis said.
“It’s fantastic. Within this aquarium, the Moat Science Education Aquarium, it is our duty to represent that science to the public, to translate it so that the general public can understand exactly what Moat scientists are doing and how we continue to benefit the understanding of the marine environment.”
With much pomp and circumstance, Cairo is today to inaugurate the long-awaited Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM), widely presented as the crowning jewel on authorities’ efforts to overhaul the country’s vital tourism industry. With a panoramic view of the Giza pyramids plateau, the museum houses thousands of artifacts spanning more than 5,000 years of Egyptian antiquity at a whopping cost of more than US$1 billion. More than two decades in the making, the ultra-modern museum anticipates 5 million visitors annually, with never-before-seen relics on display. In the run-up to the grand opening, Egyptian media and official statements have hailed the “historic moment,” describing the
SECRETIVE SECT: Tetsuya Yamagami was said to have held a grudge against the Unification Church for bankrupting his family after his mother donated about ￥100m The gunman accused of killing former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe yesterday pleaded guilty, three years after the assassination in broad daylight shocked the world. The slaying forced a reckoning in a nation with little experience of gun violence, and ignited scrutiny of alleged ties between prominent conservative lawmakers and a secretive sect, the Unification Church. “Everything is true,” Tetsuya Yamagami said at a court in the western city of Nara, admitting to murdering the nation’s longest-serving leader in July 2022. The 45-year-old was led into the room by four security officials. When the judge asked him to state his name, Yamagami, who
‘CHILD PORNOGRAPHY’: The doll on Shein’s Web site measure about 80cm in height, and it was holding a teddy bear in a photo published by a daily newspaper France’s anti-fraud unit on Saturday said it had reported Asian e-commerce giant Shein (希音) for selling what it described as “sex dolls with a childlike appearance.” The French Directorate General for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control (DGCCRF) said in a statement that the “description and categorization” of the items on Shein’s Web site “make it difficult to doubt the child pornography nature of the content.” Shortly after the statement, Shein announced that the dolls in question had been withdrawn from its platform and that it had launched an internal inquiry. On its Web site, Le Parisien daily published a
DEADLY PREDATORS: In New South Wales, smart drumlines — anchored buoys with baited hooks — send an alert when a shark bites, allowing the sharks to be tagged High above Sydney’s beaches, drones seek one of the world’s deadliest predators, scanning for the flick of a tail, the swish of a fin or a shadow slipping through the swell. Australia’s oceans are teeming with sharks, with great whites topping the list of species that might fatally chomp a human. Undeterred, Australians flock to the sea in huge numbers — with a survey last year showing that nearly two-thirds of the population made a total of 650 million coastal visits in a single year. Many beach lovers accept the risks. When a shark killed surfer Mercury Psillakis off a northern Sydney beach last
RSS