Monterey Bay Aquarium History

The Monterey Bay Aquarium, which is located in a former sardine cannery on Cannery Row in Monterey, California, is one of the largest and most respected aquariums in the world. It has an annual attendance of 1.8 million and holds 35,000 plants and animals representing 623 species. 

Among the aquarium's numerous exhibits, two are of particular note. The centerpiece of the Ocean's Edge wing is a 33-foot (10-m) high tank for viewing California coastal marine life. In this tank, the aquarium was the first in the world to grow live California Giant Kelp using a wave machine at the top of the tank (water movement is a necessary precondition for keeping Giant Kelp, which absorbs nutrients from surrounding water and requires turbidity), allowing sunlight in through the open tank top, and pumping in raw seawater. The second exhibit of note is a one million gallon tank in the Outer Bay Wing which features one of the world's largest single-paned windows (crafted by a Japanese company, the window is actually four panes seamlessly glued together through a proprietary process).

Sealife on exhibit includes stingrays, jellyfish, sea otters, and numerous other native marine species, which can be viewed above and below the waterline. For displaying jellyfish, the MBA uses an aquarium called a Kreisel tank which creates a circular flow to support and suspend the jellies. Visitors are able to inspect the creatures of the kelp forest at several levels in the building.

Beginning in September 2004, the Outer Bay exhibit was the home to the first Great White Shark ever successfully kept on exhibit. The shark was at the aquarium for 198 days (the previous record was 16 days). The shark was released on 31 March 2005 after she bit two soupfin sharks in the exhibit, both of which later died. The aquarium staff believe the shark may have been acting to defend territory as she didn't actually eat either of the sharks. On the evening of August 31, 2006 the aquarium introduced a second shark to the Outer bay exhibit. The juvenile male was caught outside Santa Monica Bay on August 17[1] and was released on January 16, 2007. The shark had grown from an initial length of 5-foot-8 and 103 pounds when it arrived on August 31, 2006 to 6-foot-5 and 171 pounds on release. Data from this second white shark was transmitted back to aquarium staff from a pop-off satellite tag after 90 days.

The aquarium's original building was designed by the architectural firm EHDD (Esherick Homsey Dodge and Davis) and opened on 20 October 1984. The aquarium's mission is "to inspire conservation of the oceans." The aquarium's initial financial backing was provided by David Packard, co-founder of Hewlett-Packard. Packard, an avid blacksmith, personally designed and created several exhibit elements for the aquarium at his forge in Big Sur, including the wave machines in the Kelp Forest and aviary. His daughter, the marine biologist Julie Packard, is currently Executive Director of the aquarium.

In January 1996, the aquarium opened the new Outer Bay wing to provide exhibits covering the open-water ecology of Monterey's Outer Bay. Besides the above-mentioned million-gallon tank, another of the new exhibits included a school of 3000 anchovies (a fish that was once the foundation of Monterey's economy), swimming against the endless current of a toroidal tank.