|
The Monterey Bay Aquarium (MBA) is a public aquarium located in Monterey, California, United States. The aquarium was founded in 1984 and is located on the site of a former sardine cannery on Cannery Row. It has an annual attendance of more than two million visitors. It holds thousands of plants and animals, representing more than 600 species on display. The aquarium benefits from a high circulation of fresh ocean water which is obtained through pipes which pump it in continuously from Monterey Bay. The centerpiece of the ''Ocean's Edge Wing'', is a , tank for viewing California coastal marine life. In this tank, the aquarium was the first in the world to grow live California Giant Kelp. Visitors are able to inspect the creatures of the kelp forest at several levels in the building. The largest tank in the aquarium is a tank in the Open Sea galleries (formerly the Outer Bay), which features one of the world's largest single-paned windows. It is one of the few aquariums to hold the ocean sunfish in captivity. Sealife on exhibit includes stingrays, jellyfish, sea otters, and numerous other native marine species, which can be viewed above and below the waterline. The Monterey Bay Aquarium is one of very few in the world to exhibit both bluefin and yellowfin tuna. For displaying jellyfish, it uses a Kreisel tank, which creates a circular flow to support and suspend the jellies. The aquarium does not house mammals other than otters. ==History== There had been a number of attempts to build an aquarium in the Monterey area dating back almost 100 years. In 1914 an aquarium was proposed to the city council by Frank Booth with a cost of $10,000. A bond issue was sponsored in an attempt to place an aquarium in the basement of the Pacific Grove Museum by Knut Hovden in 1925 and in 1944 an aquarium is suggested for Point Lobos State Reserve.〔(【引用サイトリンク】 title=Early Years )〕 The aquarium occupies land at the end of Cannery Row (once Ocean View Avenue) in Monterey, at the site of the Hovden Cannery, a sardine cannery that helped to define the character of Monterey from the time it was built in 1916 to the day when it was the last cannery on the Row to close in 1973, after sardine fishing collapsed. This building was dismantled in 1980, but beginning in 2002 the Monterey Bay Aquarium has blown the original Hovden Cannery steam whistle at noon each day to commemorate it.〔 〕 The aquarium's original building was designed by the architectural firm Esherick Homsey Dodge & 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, marine biologist Julie Packard, is currently Executive Director of the aquarium. The aquarium was built in honor of the work of Edward Ricketts (1897–1948), a marine biologist who specialized in describing communities of organisms (which would also be the focus of aquarium tanks), and whose old laboratory (Pacific Biological Laboratories) and home resides next to the present MBA site.〔 〕 Ricketts, whose life was an inspiration for the eventual building of the aquarium, is famous as the "Doc" of John Steinbeck's ''Cannery Row'' and ''Sweet Thursday''. The aquarium itself contains a display of Ricketts' items, including some of his personal library. The shop also sells a variety of Steinbeck books. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Monterey Bay Aquarium」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|