Volume 3, No. 19. October 10,2003
Under-whelming
There’s an old landscaping adage: don’t build your walkways until
you see where people walk in an open space. People’s habits often dictate
use, and the Texas State Aquarium in Corpus Christi has discovered that with
its new $12 million Dolphin Bay.
The
largest addition since the aquarium opened in 1990, the 30,000-square-feet (2,787
square-meter), 400,000-gallon (1.5-million-liter) Dolphin Bay opened in May
and features two male Atlantic Bottlenosed Dolphins, Kimo and Sundance, who
do behavior demonstrations throughout the day. The aquarium raised $15 million
in private donations, with the excess going toward a general sprucing up of
exhibits, gift shop, food court, rest rooms and signage throughout the aquarium
and a $1.5 million endowment to cover future maintenance costs.
Dolphins
have always been part of the Texas State Aquarium’s plans “since day
one,” said CEO Tom Schmid. “Dolphins swim in the water right off our
facility, and (Dolphin Bay) allows visitors to get really close to the species.”
Especially downstairs in an underwater viewing room, 2,400 square feet (223
square meters) of air conditioned space with a 50-foot-long, 10 foot-high (15-by-3-meter)
curved acrylic window. “Visitors get to literally come face-to-face with
dolphins,” Schmid said. “They tend to interact especially with the
kids through the acrylic.”
The
room also has become a favorite place to watch the demonstrations. The behaviors
of jumping in the air, flipping and twisting, may be breathtaking, but equally
so are the preludes to those jumps, watching the dolphins picking up speed,
torpedoing through the water and launching themselves out. “We thought
underwater viewing would be compelling before and after the demonstrations,
but we didn’t realize how popular watching the actual presentations would
be down there,” Schmid said. “It’s been a real surprise. The
most rewarding thing for me is going down there and watching visitors’
reaction in the room, and they are just blown away.”
So
popular has the room become during presentations that the aquarium has already
started piping audio from the shows into the room, and next year Schmid plans
to add live video of the out-of-pool experiences to the underwater viewing audience.
Aside
from giving the aquarium what is arguably the greatest show under earth in Texas,
Dolphin Bay helped the Texas State Aquarium salvage what could have been a slump
year. Attendance since the addition’s opening has been up 24 percent compared
to 2002 summer attendance, and annual attendance is expected to top 475,000,
well above the 425,000 average, Schmid said. This spike was in spite of near
visits from two storms, Claudette in July and Erica in August. Hurricane Claudette
cost the aquarium “conservatively 15,000 visitors” over a nine day
period, Schmid said, and Tropical Storm Erica another 2,000 to 3,000. “It
was the second July in a row we’ve had a huge (hurricane) hit. We’re
miffed at the weather gods, but I can’t complain, looking at other theme
parks and zoos around the country.”
That’s
thanks to a huge (dolphin) hit, both over and under.
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