Vancouver Aquarium

We had a wonderful day at the Vancouver Aquarium while staying in the city last week. These are some of the things Tim Joel and Laura found the most interesting.

Laura:

The Sea Otters were very cute, although I was surprised at how big they were. The male was by himself, lying on his back in the sun, snoozing. He seemed to like cuddling his ball. The 2 females were frolicking about in the water grooming themselves. There was a younger one and an older one; you could tell them apart because as sea otters get older their fur turns blonder. They were very flexible and could reach almost every part of their bodies.  Some Aquarium staff had an otter skin that we could touch. It was very soft. They were my favourite animal at the Aquarium.

 

 

 

The Beluga Show was at 2pm. The 2 Beluga whales were called Qila and Aurora. Aurora is Qila's mother so is a bit older. An Aquarium lady stood on a rock and told us lots about Belugas while they did tricks with their trainers. They squirted water out of their mouths and squeaked and burbled in Beluga language. They also splashed water with their tails and waved at the crowd. They were very fun to watch.

 

 

 

The Aquarium website has a Otter Cam and Beluga Cam you can watch them online. Each of the pools had a glass wall you could look through to watch the under water action as well as watching them from the top.

 

Tim:

While we were visiting the Vancouver Aquarium they had a new exhibit called Jelly Invasion. They had so many different kinds of jellyfish; they are so cool, yet so strange. They had huge ones and tiny, tiny, little ones, these are some of the ones we saw. 

Fried Egg Jellyfish

Moon Jellyfish

 Lion's Mane Jellyfish

While we were eating lunch and waiting for the Beluga show we were treated to Jelly Deli, which taught us not to be surprised by the weird stuff we eat and what is in it. They then invited two people from the crowd to try some Edible jellyfish, yes an entire species of jellyfish called the Edible Jellyfish , plain and with spices. And then while the participants were eating some gelatine the Aquarium staff explained what was in it; bits of pig, fish and cow. Quite the culinary adventure.  

 

 A quote we found as we were leaving said “jellyfish are so beautiful that it almost makes up for the fact that they poop through their mouth” another strange thing about jellyfish is that they don’t actually have a brain, just a small nervous system.

They had several small Sturgeons at the Aquarium. Sturgeons are found in many of the huge rivers in Canada including the Fraser River near where we have been staying. They can live for over 100 years and grow to be over 6 meters in length!

 

 

Joel:

The first thing I noticed in the amazon part of the aquarium was the muggy atmosphere.  There were some big animals including a huge Boa Constrictor and a small Cayman alligator. We also saw some colourful Macaws, small monkeys and even a Coca Bean tree.

There was a whole area dedicated to frogs called Frogs Forever. There were frogs of all sizes from tadpoles to Giant horned toads. My favourite exhibit was of some orange bellied frogs. You could stick your head into a dome in the centre of the tank and have a 360 degree view. It was a little bit cramped with two people.

 

We went outside to the "Wild Coast" for the dolphin show. There were three dolphins, the two larger Pacific White Sided Dolphins, named Hannah and Heather, were found tangled in fishing nets off the coast of Canada. They were rescued and taken to The Vancouver Aquarium for care and rehabilitation. The smaller dolphin was in a separate pool and was not part of the show.

They were really fast - with a top speed of 35 kph - and could jump almost six meters into the air. The are also smart enough to learn the signs for lots of tricks and make a strong bond with their trainer. In my opinion they are fantastic animals.