Oregon Coast Aquarium

Yesterday was supposed to be a kayaking day, but it was cool and cloudy, with a thunderstorm expected, so we opted for the aquarium instead. What a wonderful place! It is supposedly ranked second to the famous aquarium in Monterey. I've never been to the Monterey one, so this one is first in my book! There are both indoor and outdoors displays, and it reminds me of Hogle Zoo at home in that different areas of the buildings and the grounds house different "zones" as well as different species. Indoors, there's a coastal zone, an open ocean zone, a tidal zone, and an invertabrate zone, to name a few. Outdoors, there's an aviary with water and shore birds, a sea otter pool, and a sea lion and harbor seal pool. The outdoor pools all have both above and below ground viewing areas so you can see the animals doing all kinds of different things. One indoor exhibit was called "Oddballs" and featured creatures with unusual adaptations for defense, hunting, breeding, etc. Each tank housed, not only sea creatures, but beautiful art glass blown at a local gallery that was fashioned into shapes resembling coral, seaweed, etc. It was stunning. The seahorse and fish photos show some of the glass, and no, the seahorse photo should not be turned. He (or she?) was hanging on that way. Each area of the aquarium had many volunteers ready and able to provide interesting information about the animals. They were so knowledgeable and accommodating. In the tide pool area, where you can reach in and gently touch urchins, anemones, and others, I watched a volunteer gently scoop up sea cucumber into a pyrex dish so a wheelchair-bound woman who couldn't reach down into the pool could touch it. We watched volunteers hand feed the sea otters. They (the otters, not the volunteers!) are huge--much larger than river otters--50 to 70 pounds, and of course, very cute. The three they have here have been either orphaned or injured and were not able to be rehabilitated back into the wild. One of them, misnamed Hunter, was picked up again after being released because he was unable to hunt for food. He would hang around the piers, begging for food, and was even jumping into peoples' kayaks! Wouldn't that be a surprise!