MAKING A SPLASH
ABQ BioPark Zoo, Aquarium celebrate marine mammals
Learn about the fascinating lives of marine mammals through fun crafts and films and informative stations during celebrations at the ABQ BioPark Aquarium and Zoo.
The zoo will be showcasing polar bears on Thursday, March 15, and the aquarium will highlight seals on the same day. Guests can also watch a movie about whales and visit a station to learn more about the majestic creatures.
“They will be talking about behaviors and the way that whales move and flap,” said Pamela Dupzyk, education coordinator for the aquarium and botanic garden. “We’ll have things like they will be able to touch baleen, we have a large whale rib that they’ll be able to touch. There’s a little activity about echolocation about how whales use sound waves to determine where fish is.”
On March 16, it’s all about dolphins. Visitors will be able make a craft, watch a movie and learn more about dolphins at an information station. On March 17, guests will get to learn about sea otters as well as river otters. Activities will take place near the area where the river otter exhibit will soon be at the aquarium. Dupzyk said crews are working to erect the exhibit, which she tentatively expects to open in the late spring.
“We will be talking about sea otters, because we don’t have sea otters and we have river otters,” Dupzyk said. “We thought we’d do a comparison because river otters, even though they are called river otters, you can find them all along the Pacific Coast in the salt water. They live in the estuaries and along the coast. So even though we call them river otters, they actually can live in either fresh or salt, where sea otters can only live in the ocean. We will be talking a lot about how sea otters swim on their backs and the river otters don’t and stuff like that. River otters are solitary, and sea otters hang out in groups of females and young. So kind of cool things like that.”
The zoo will be doing activities on seals and polar bears all three days by the seal and polar bear exhibits. The aquarium will pick a different animal each day. Visitors who buy a combined admission ticket can catch the train, which runs to and from the zoo and aquarium, to enjoy events at both locations.
“This is a celebration that was set up by some conservation group to have more awareness of marine mammals because so many are endangered,” Dupzyk said.