The Aquarium of the Pacific goes for cuteness immersion
Exhibition of baby otters, sharks and other animals carries message of habitat protection
The Aquarium of the Pacific is about to go into cuteness overload with a new exhibition celebrating its growing aqua babies.
With the goal of urging the conservation of their environments, the Long Beach aquarium today opens “Babies!” a new exhibition featuring dozens of tiny sea creatures, including adorable rescued sea otter pups and even soon-to-be-feared predators still in their terrible twos.
But while they’re young and cute, these animals have an important role as part of this exhibition.
“We’re displaying these cute, little, small animals and fish, but they have a very important story to tell. Through them, we are talking about the habitats they live in and the dangers to these habitats,” said Fahria Qader, director of Pacific Visions and architecture for the aquarium.
Located in the aquarium’s Pacific Visions gallery, the exhibition is slated to run through summer 2023 and will include color-changing baby cuttlefish, a sea jellyfish nursery lab, a young desert tortoise, baby sharks and other young fish exhibited in habitats like mangroves, coral reefs and sea grass beds.
Among the stars in the exhibition will be four recently rescued sea otters 4-8 months old.
“These guys are very, very cute,” Qader said.
The three youngest pups arrived at the aquarium in January and have yet to be named, while Ryder, at 8 months the oldest of the bunch, came last fall.
They all still have quite a lot of growing to do, since sea otters can live up to 22 years in captivity.
And while she’s not a sea creature, Sally, the juvenile desert tortoise, lives at the aquarium and is still a baby. Sally is estimated to be 5-10 years old, which for a tortoise is still a baby since they can live to around 80.
And cue the “Baby Shark” song because a group of bamboo and epaulette sharks will be swimming around their nursery. They’re about 2 years old but can live up to 25 years. Besides baby sharks, visitors will also see shark eggs, Qader said.
But all babies have to grow up at some point, so the exhibition will evolve as well.
“Because these are small, little babies, they can’t stay babies forever, so we’ll have to change them out and put new species in. So this is a good exhibit to come and see a few times because you will have new animals in there,” Qader said.