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EveryFish

Aquarium or research, United States

Monterey Bay Aquarium

The aquarium on Cannery Row in a former sardine cannery, known for its kelp forest and its Seafood Watch guide.

Monterey Bay Aquarium opened in 1984 on Cannery Row in Monterey, California, partly on the site of the Hovden Cannery, one of the sardine canneries that closed after the Pacific sardine fishery collapsed. Its tanks show the life of Monterey Bay, from the kelp forest to the open sea, and it is a major centre of marine research and conservation.

Kelp and the open sea

The kelp forest exhibit, one of the first to grow live giant kelp indoors, holds rockfish, sardines and leopard sharks swaying among the fronds. The Open Sea gallery shows schools of sardines and Pacific bluefin tuna and an ocean sunfish. Between 2004 and 2011 the aquarium held several young great white sharks for months at a time before releasing them, among the few places to do so.

Sardines and Seafood Watch

Cannery Row was the setting of John Steinbeck's novel, written when the sardine canneries were at their peak. The catch collapsed in the late 1940s and 1950s, a classic case of overfishing combined with ocean change. The aquarium's Seafood Watch programme, started in 1999, rates seafood as best choices, good alternatives or to avoid, and is widely used by shoppers and restaurants in the United States.

Fish of Monterey Bay Aquarium

Great white sharkYoung sharks were held here for short periods

Still to be written: Sardinops, Pacific bluefin tuna, Ocean sunfish, Leafy seadragon.

Photo credits on this page

The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.

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