Seattle Aquarium

Gwen and a few of her students, which included me boarded a van toward the zoo at about 9:23 am on Wednesday February 28th. We arrived at the zoo at 10:02, unloaded and waited in the aquarium until Gwen parked and came to find us. She told us where areas we needed to make sure to see where; the tide pool, sea otters, and birds. We agreed to meet at the café around 12:30 pm. The majority of the aquarium is inside so the rain did not affect us very much.

I started out at the tide pool, touching sea anemones, star fish and other sea creatures. I next went to go look at the bird exhibit. I was surprised to not see that many birds. There was one bird, a black oystercatcher, that was just staring at me and since I did not know anything about this bird, I followed my instinct and left. I was the only one in the exhibit otherwise, I would have stayed. Next, with the rest of the group, I went to go hear about the otters at the zoo. I went back inside and to the Tropical Pacific area, which was all different tropical fish. The one interesting fish that caught my eye was the vertical shrimpfish. According to the information posted next to the tank, the Vertical Shrimpfish swim vertically to make hiding from predators more efficient (Seattle Aquarium). The staff were feeding them different fish, for example, tuna, salmon and quail.

The Vertical Shrimpfish is located in the middle of the picture. They are green and black.

Next, I went back into the bird area and a volunteer was there to answer questions. She had just said how some of the birds were from the east coast, so I asked if the aquarium had animals only from the United States or nationwide? Her response was confusing a little, she said that mainly they try to get animals exclusively from the Pacific Northwest. I was left wondering if the birds were misplaced on the east coast then, or why they acquired east coast animals.

I headed down to the underwater dome marine mammal area, where I learned about orcas. There are three different orca sub pods within the category of resident orcas. Resident Orcas are the kind that live in the Puget Sound. The sub pods within this category are: J, K, and L. The different sub pods each make their own unique mating call and other communications. This does create some violence between different Orca’s. The staff member that was explaining this when I asked said that if another orca tries to get into the habit of another orca they will fight. We had lunch next, I had a mocha with pizza (interesting combo, I am aware). After lunch, a few friends and I headed to the gift shop for the last 45 minutes. The way home had a lot more traffic but, we made it back to school by 3:00 pm. When we arrived at school  we saw three cop cars and a school security car all around the same area.