Page 32 - ARUBA TODAY

A32 FEATURE
Tuesday 26 June 2018

Sandy-ravaged aquarium opens splashy new shark exhibit

By KAREN MATTHEWS And to help them make
Associated Press that connection.” The ex-
NEW YORK (AP) — Cue the hibit’s showpiece is a huge
“Jaws” music. Sharks are tank representing the Hud-
the stars of a splashy new son Canyon, a submarine
exhibit hall at the New York canyon that starts near the
Aquarium that marks a ma- mouth of the Hudson River
jor step in the beachfront between New York and
facility’s recovery from New Jersey. There are sand
the devastating impact of tiger sharks with fearsome
2012’s Superstorm Sandy. teeth, sandbar sharks with
Set in a shiny new build- tall dorsal fins and nurse
ing just behind the famed sharks huddled together on
Coney Island boardwalk, the floor of the tank. There
“Ocean Wonders: Sharks!” are also small fish like per-
with its largest tank at mits and jack crevalles, a
379,000-gallons is set to loggerhead turtle named
open June 30 while work Blue and a roughtail sting-
continues on the rest of ray named Ray Charles —
the aquarium’s 14-acre both female.
campus, more than half of Other sections of the ex-
which remains closed al- hibit decry the plastic trash
most six years after Sandy. Jon Dohlin, director of the New York Aquarium, listens during an interview inside an underwater choking the oceans and
The Wildlife Conservation tunnel that at the New York Aquarium, Wednesday June 20, 2018, in New York. promote sustainable fishing
Society, which runs the Associated Press practices. Sharks are killed
aquarium along with the aquarium. The new exhibit is few New Yorkers would even notice it. It’s only both by targeted fishing for
Bronx Zoo and other city housed in a 57,500-square- peg as neighbors. when it stops that I feel it.” their fins and as bycatch,
zoos, was about to break foot building whose undu- “If you go swimming in the The shark tank will use its caught by trawlers and
ground on “Sharks!” when lating shapes are clad in water above your waist toothy predators as bait long-line fishermen seeking
Sandy knocked out power a “shimmer wall” of alumi- you’re swimming with these to promote awareness of other species.
and flooded exhibits, elec- num tiles that evoke scales animals,” Dohlin said. “We threats to marine ecosys- A main message of the
trical equipment and ad- or a school of sardines. want people to understand tems including overfishing exhibit is that sharks have
ministrative offices at the Inside there are 12 spe- that there’s all this cool stuff and pollution. more to fear from humans
aquarium, which is situated cies of sharks as well as six in our water.” Susan Chin, the Wildlife that humans have to fear
on the narrow peninsula species of skates and rays. The $158 million “Sharks!” Conservation Society’s in- from sharks. “We’re really
that forms Brooklyn’s Co- Dozens of other sea crea- exhibit is opening amid on- house architect who led pushing against the tide
ney Island. tures from loggerhead sea going work on the rest of the new building’s design of the perception of sharks
“I honestly thought in that turtles to striped bass join the aquarium, which won’t team in collaboration with that’s been created by
first 20 minutes that we’d them in three massive tanks fully reopen until 2020. the firm of Edelman Sultan popular culture,” Dohlin
lost the aquarium,” the fa- and several smaller ones. Dohlin and other staffers Knox Wood and its con- said. “Whether it’s ‘Jaws’ or
cility’s director, Jon Forrest Sharks swim overhead in who lost their offices to sultants, said she grew up Shark Week, we know that
Dohlin, said. the tunnel-shaped coral Sandy are still working out in New York without ever people have a very mono-
The new shark exhibit was reef exhibit, creating the il- of trailers, and Dohlin said knowing much about the chromatic fear of sharks.
put on hold while staffers lusion that the visitor is an- his trailer is parked almost ocean habitats that sur- They’re large great whites
worked around the clock other ocean dweller. The underneath Coney Island’s round the city. that will eat you, that’s
to rescue as many animals other two big tanks are Cyclone roller coaster. “Wow, we have seahorses what people think. The
as possible and reopen the stocked with marine life not “All day long I can hear the under the Brooklyn Bridge?” truth is, of course, they’re
parts of the aquarium that from the tropics but from rumble and feel the rumble Chin said. “You’ve been liv- very diverse, they’re very
weren’t too badly dam- the waters off New York, and hear the screams,” he ing in this city all your life important, they’re getting
aged. Dohlin called the including red and white said. “I thought, ‘I’m going and you didn’t know that. wiped out. So that’s some-
delayed debut of “Sharks!” anemones, purple sea ur- to go crazy.’ My entire trail- That’s our job, to open thing that we really want to
a great step forward for the chins and pink starfish that er shakes. And now I don’t people’s eyes to nature. turn on its head.”q

Visitors walk through an immersive underwater tunnel that
A school of fish trail a shark in the New York Aquarium’s latest exhibit, Wednesday June 20, 2018, features a coral reef ecosystem at the New York Aquarium,
in New York. Wednesday June 20, 2018, in New York.
Associated Press Associated Press