Longtime Vancouver Aquarium director Nightingale to step down at end of year

VANCOUVER After a quarter of a century, John Nightingale is leaving the Vancouver Aquarium a radically different organization than the one he came to in 1993.

Only the second director in the aquarium’s 62-year history, Nightingale announced Thursday he would be retiring at the end of 2018.

“On the mission side, I will carry on my interest in oceans and ocean conservation. Some of how I work on that will change,” he said. “I won’t have to do all that paperwork.”

Nightingale will continue his term on Polar Knowledge Canada’s board and will work on some of the research being done by the aquarium, through the Ocean Wise Conservation Association.

Asked about his most important legacy, Nightingale said he’s proudest of having transformed a local institute into a global force for ocean conservation that involves people around the world in ocean issues.

But he also mentions the annual Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup, the Ocean Wise Sustainable Seafood program for restaurants, the Coastal Research Institute and creation of the classroom in a truck called AquaVan that travels to Metro Vancouver schools and across the province.

On his watch, attendance grew from 750,000 to a peak of 1.2 million in 2016; the annual budget from a small deficit on a $10-million operating budget to a self-sustaining organization with revenue-producing subsidiaries that support its $40 million a year operations.

Nightingale oversaw aggressive expansions and led the aquarium through its most tumultuous period with the long-running battle over having whales, porpoises and dolphins on display.

It culminated in January with the aquarium’s decision to no longer have cetaceans and almost certainly played a part in the timing of Nightingale’s retirement.

“The decision to have no more cetaceans was hard for anyone who ever watched people — whether they were eight or 80 — look at a beluga whale,” he said earlier this week. “Kids stand there slackjawed. They can watch all the videos, but they won’t have that reaction. So, we’ve lost a tremendous tool in our quest for ocean literacy.”