Heal the Bay Blog

This is the third installment of a four-part series on the many changes the Santa Monica Pier Aquarium has gone through since March 1, 2003, when Heal the Bay took over management and ownership of the marine education center. Today’s blogger, Aquarium Director Vicki Wawerchak, recounts some of the not-so subtle modifications.

The exterior and interior of the facility has undergone a variety of design and color changes in the past nine years. When I first arrived at the Aquarium, it was decked out in traditional UCLA blue and gold. And growing up with a father whose mantra was “Root for UCLA and anyone playing against USC!” – I didn’t mind seeing those colors that had surrounded me for many years.

But after settling in and infusing Heal the Bay’s mission into everything we did, we decided to create an exterior that not only called attention to the facility, but also used that space to educate. We designed a variety of concepts and color schemes for exterior paint, patio banners, sail fin banners and pole flags and decided to use the patio banners to educate the general public about the scale of the marine life in the Santa Monica Bay.

That same father who rooted for UCLA at the 50-yard line was also a teacher who taught me to look for and leverage every teachable moment available—even the ones that didn’t seem obvious at first. So I was excited about the educational banner idea and the staff were eager to debut this new addition. Never did I think it would backfire quite like it did. Many people saw the outline of a juvenile grey whale at 15 feet and a sea lion at six feet and were disappointed to learn that we housed neither of those species in our 4,500-square-foot marine education center—there were even visitors that asked for their $2 entry fee to be refunded. Best laid plans…

The Aquarium interior before and after renovation

The interior of the facility has also been renovated numerous times; the original color scheme of black ceilings, black exhibit bases and grey floors was designed so visitors would feel they were stepping into an underwater world. The feeling of being under the sea was definitely infused into the facility, but again the opportunity to use the interior — not just the exhibits — as a teaching canvas was the driving force for the remodel. We painted the interior, worked to create new colorful exhibit banners, remodeled exhibit bases using recycled materials and installed a new sandy bottom-colored floor.

In December 2008, the installation of a carpet made of recycled material and flooring from recycled tires in our classroom added a new, fresh and clean look for the interior. That year, when we reopened after the holidays with the new design, the general public, teachers and students complimented the interior and a number visitors asked if we had expanded.

While we haven’t expanded our footprint, through creative use of every square inch of the Aquarium, we have managed to expand visitors’ knowledge of the local marine environment.

Read part two of the four part series.

This is the second installment of a four-part series on the many changes the Santa Monica Pier Aquarium has undergone since Heal the Bay took over management and ownership of the marine education center.  Aquarium Director Vicki Wawerchak shares her memories of the first major change in the space, which were designed to make our space more child-friendly.

One of the first, staff-driven, facility enhancement projects was retiring the UCLA Ocean Discovery Center’s giftshop/bookstore and creating the Santa Monica Pier Aquarium’s Kids’ Corner in its place.

After the transfer of management from UCLA to Heal the Bay in 2003, Heal the Bay closed the Aquarium to the general public (but continued to offer previously scheduled field trip education programs) and during that time, we reorganized both our exhibits and organizational structure. The Kids’ Corner was created as an interactive space to engage families and some of our youngest visitors, encouraging them to understand the ocean environment and become pint-sized stewards. In that spirit, the space was converted to inspire the next generation of marine biologists and the corner has undergone many changes since 2003 (including our notorious octopus-triggered flood).

The first iteration included two exhibits—an octopus and a phylum discovery tank, IKEA kid-sized furniture and rugs, a small selection of environmentally-themed books, a chalkboard wall in the shape of a fish and a puppet theater. The entire corner was prepped, painted, stocked and maintained by staff and the reaction from the public was overwhelming. Since that time we were able to hire HOK, the global architecture firm specializing in planning and design, to design a Kids’ Corner that is now one of the more popular areas of the Aquarium for families with young children.

The Kids’ Corner before and after renovation

The space is supplied with marine-themed books (in both English and Spanish), puzzles and games and young visitors delight in discovering the toys stashed in pint-sized drawers designed for their exploration, or putting on a puppet show using a barrel full of sea creature puppets. It provides a fun, interactive, educational experience that is different and yet complements what’s happening in the other areas of the Aquarium.

The Kids’ Corner has become instrumental to the Aquarium’s success at reaching a wider variety of audiences. It allows families an area for younger children to play or read a story, while older siblings explore more advanced displays or interact with volunteers in the Aquarium gallery. When I see siblings sitting together on the bench reading stories to each other or hear an elaborate puppet show taking place with different voices and names of puppet characters, I know the facility has succeeded in reaching this younger set of visitors. This is an important task for the Santa Monica Pier Aquarium as we understand that it is these younger visitors who educate their parents on environmental issues and on whom we are going to rely in the future to continue to conserve and preserve the ocean environment.

Read part one of the four part series.

Today’s blogger is staffer Jose Bacallao, senior aquarist at Heal the Bay’s Santa Monica Pier Aquarium.

Winter can be brutal in So Cal. I know all the East Coast transplants in L.A. are rolling their eyes right now – but it’s wet, cold and windy here, too.  Moreover, working as an aquarist at the Santa Monica Pier Aquarium – shorts and flip flops being the uniform of choice – December can really hurt. Yes indeed, it hurts from our little toes to the tips of our fingers.

So, whether it’s hot or cold, we have to get in the water once a week to collect kelp and other organisms for the Aquarium. Collecting is a top priority as our animals need fresh algae, live mysid shrimp and other animals to thrive on exhibit, enabling us to educate the public and the students from hundred of schools that visit annually. This past week we went “jelly fishing”.

Over the past four years our team of aquarist staff and interns has been culturing and exhibiting Moon Jellies. We work hard to grow our sea jellies in-house and culture new “baby jellies” (ephyrae) to avoid having to collect live sea jellies from the wild. But over the past several weeks, following two power outages, we lost the majority of our moon jellies. The power outages devastated our culture and exhibit program. After much discussion and debate, staff agreed the time had come to bring in a few wild specimens and “start over” again. This was an exciting opportunity not only to revitalize the Aquarium’s sea jelly culture, but also to involve our aquarist interns on a fun collection trip.

We spent a few days communicating with colleagues from other aquaria in order to find the best collection spot and after getting a great tip, we decided that our best shot would be trying a secret spot in Long Beach. We were very anxious for the next morning and our chance to collect new moon jellies. Although moon jellies aren’t very good swimmers (they’re plankton after all) we knew that just because they were spotted on Monday didn’t guarantee they’d be there Tuesday morning. A lot can happen in just a few hours, just ask the Lakers and Chris Paul.

When we arrived the next morning, we were stoked. In the back section of the bay we spotted about 300-400 moon jellies. The collection plan was very direct and easy. Our interns were to walk the docks with buckets and collection bags and access the jellies from land, while Seth and I collected from the water. I’ll be honest, I had never tried the latter method but I had a really good feeling about it. You see for the past few months we’ve been spending our lunch hour on our stand up paddleboards (SUP) so we thought, why not? 

Let me tell you, there is no better way to collect jellies than on my C4 iSUP! Aquarist Seth Lawrence on his board and me on mine, with coolers, nets and bags and in no time we had collected our targeted amount. Together we collected 25 adult moon jellies. We carefully bagged our jellies for transport, careful to keep them free from air bubbles, treated our interns to a celebratory “victory coffee” and drove them back to the Aquarium. They are now on exhibit at the Aquarium and we are working hard to start a new culture of baby jellies. With some luck and cooperation from the moon jellies, we hope to be back to tip-top shape by end of winter.

Meanwhile, come visit these graceful creatures on exhibit at the Aquarium or for a meaningful holiday gift, aquadopt one »

We collected a sample of water off the Santa Monica Pier today, and got a bit of a surprise. Instead of the blue-gray water that we usually collect, a rusty, brownish-red liquid filled the collection jar. Welcome back red tide!

Aquarium staff has been bombarded with questions regarding what people perceive as “polluted water” these past few days. So here’s a little background on this interesting phenomenon.

The term red tide is a bit of a misnomer as the color of the water is usually not red, and the blooms are not associated with the tides. Hmm….ponder that wonder of science.

Red tides occur when there is a high concentration of mostly dinoflagellates, a small, single-celled phytoplankton that possess two flagella, or whiplike projections. The water appears as a rusty-brownish color as the light reflects off the accessory pigments in the cells of the numerous phytoplankton, or algae, floating on the surface.

Dinoflagellates reproduce by fission, meaning the single cell divides in half and then creates two new cells, and so on and so on as the population continues to grow exponentially. Under the right conditions the organisms can reproduce once a day, creating a massive population bloom. During the peak of the red tide there can often be tens or hundreds of thousands of dinoflagellates in one drop of water.

This phenomenon can occur all over the world, and about 200 species are known to cause the red tide. However, during a red tide other organisms aside from the dinoflagellates have been found, such as cyanobacteria and diatoms.

Contrary to what many believe, not all red tides are harmful. But to be clear, many can cause adverse health effects.

Many of the dinoflagellates that are responsible for these occurrences are simple organisms. However about a third of the species causing red tides have the ability to produce toxins as metabolic by-products.

During a toxic bloom, mussels, clams and other shellfish that filter feed plankton as a food source, end up concentrating high amounts of the dinoflagellates and can tolerate the toxins by storing it in digestive glands or other tissues. However, when people eat these animals they can suffer nausea/vomiting, diarrhea, tingling or numbness. Fatalities can occur in the most severe cases. This is known as Paralytic Shellfish Poisoning (PSP) and one species of dinoflagellate in the genus Alexandrium is the culprit. That’s the reason behind the annual mussel harvesting quarantine along the entire California coast from May 1- Oct. 31.

Red tides are unpredictable and the causes of them are not entirely known, however, red tides have been occurring more frequently. Some factors that may contribute to the blooms are reduced salinity, optimal light and nutrients, warm surface temperatures, transport in ballast water of ships and pollution. Sewage and fertilizer found in urban runoff contribute a high level of phosphates and nitrates into the ocean environment. Burning of fossil fuels also contributes to the amount of nitrogen, and is considered the greatest source to the open ocean environment. Excessive amounts of these nutrients cause the primary producers to grow rapidly.

Primarily a problem in coastal habitats, the algae grow quickly and reduce the amount of sunlight that is able to penetrate to the bottom. As the phytoplankton blooms and then dies, and as metabolic wastes builds up from the zooplankton and fish that feed on the abundant phytoplankton, decay bacteria break down the matter and in the process use up the oxygen. Also, due to the turbulence in the water the decaying phytoplankton become crushed and create a foaming effect on the shore.

What does all this mean to the beachgoers and lovers of the sea? Some believe that swimming, boating, or breathing sea spray that is affected with red tide organisms can cause eye irritations, skin discomfort and sore throats, so be careful out there! But do go out there and check it out. It’s pretty amazing.

Oh, and if you have the chance to visit the ocean at night, check out the bioluminescence that occurs in the waves. These dinoflagellates can take energy from a chemical reaction and convert it to light energy so that they produce an awesome blue-green light that looks like a fireworks show in the water.

Happy exploring!

—Vicki Wawerchak, Director, Santa Monica Pier Aquarium