Wonders of the Central Coast: Monterey Bay Aquarium

If you live anywhere near Monterey, California, chances are that at some time in your life you’ve visited the world-renowned Monterey Bay Aquarium. Whether as child on a field trip or an adult, you’ve probably looked into the depths of the kelp forest, gazed at hypnotic jellyfish, caught a glimpse of large, elegant creatures in the Open Sea or just laughed along with a playful otter or penguin. But what you may not have seen are all the wonderful things that go on behind the scenes.

As you can probably imagine, a lot goes into making this complex ecosystem functions.
Tour coordinator, Andrea Satterfield took me behind the glass to show how it all works.

“There are so many people that make this aquarium work and not just paid staff,” she said. “We’re looking at over twelve hundred volunteers, a lot of man hours, a lot of resources and people that love their job.”

People like diving officer Andrew Morgan, who spends a lot of his time under water.

“A majority of it is maintenance and animal observation. We’re making sure their habitats are clean and the viewers have a good experience as they come and they visit our aquarium. And then also, the animal husbandry side of things: making sure these animals are doing well, their behavior is somewhat natural, making sure they’re not sick, making sure they’re getting fed.”

And speaking of food, the animals all need to eat! I met up with food tech and aquarist, Reginald Gary who takes great pride in cooking up something special for the aquarium’s multitude of species.

“We have a mixed diet here. We have various food items like the large krill, we have some whitefish, we have some squid and some salmon, so a nice variety because we have different species of fish in here– big mouths, big food, small mouths, small food.”

I even tried my hand at feeding the fish, from throwing out a meal in the bigger exhibits to hand-feeding some friendly bat rays.

Some animals are on a special diet and require a little more than just food. For example, I was shown how to hide a vitamin in a penguin’s dinner. You may have done this with your pets at home!

Like our pets, all of these animals require attention and care to make sure they have a healthy lifestyle and that means having a little fun.

Sea otter aquarist, Hannah Ban-Weiss explains.

“We just give them stuff that makes sure that they’re mentally stimulated and can be as much of an otter as possible.”

The aquarium prides itself on being something more than just a big fish tank, though. In fact, tank is kind of a four letter word.

“We’re not just about exhibiting animals,” said Satterfield. “We’re about connecting people to those animals and inspiring those people– inspiring them to conserve the world’s oceans and eat sustainable sea food.”

“I’ve always thought that the aquarium has been a Wonder of the Central Coast,” said Morgan. “I remember coming here as a kid and looking into the exhibits and thinking to myself this would be an amazing place to come and a wonderful place to come and visit and then ultimately, here I am, I’m working here.”

The aquarium actually offers behind the scenes tours so you can see a more intimate view of the environment and even feed the animals. More information can be found on their website here: http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/animals-and-experiences/tours-and-adventures/tours/behind-the-scenes