picture fish

Why did I think that it would be cool to write about the history of the Long Beach Aquariaum?

At first, I thought, what a great transition this will be! writing about rivers to full tanks of aqautic life forms. And then, after spending a whole day on their website I discovered all these great programs, exhibits, tours, educational programs for both kids and bigger kids. The place is amazing from what I can tell on their website and so I thought the history of the place, the structure, the fight for the animals would be the same. It would somehow instill a sense of wonder, like their mission statement, of the bravoto of the man who walked into the Mayor of Long Beach’s office and said : “Damnit John! this palce needs a cultural attraction what the sea and all, and the LA River’s mouth dumping its guts in our nieghiborhood!”

“And you do you suppose to make that happen Jim?” the Mayor might have said, looking up from his offical forms and judging this guys brashness.

“I’ll tell you how, John,” Jim would’ve said backing off a bit, tonging down the intensity a few notches, “by building an Aquarium. The Aqarium of the Pacific!”

“You mean a fish tank? What are we going to fill it with? Goldfish?” The mayor wanted to know, mocking this fools idea.

“Oh no, Jhon, not just any ordinary Aquarium where you might find these fish at your local exotic fish store down the street. Oh no. Im talking about the biggest Aquarium this sode of the country Bigger than the one up in Monterey. A zoo of the aquatic! Will have programs, exhibits, peopl from all over the world will want to come to out home town Long Beach just to see it. We’ll be the first to successfuly breed near extinct speieces! Sea world will have shit compared to us. Fuck Shamu John! We’ll have the freakin’ whales. With wild whale watching programs. And people with AAA memberships could get a discount.”

“Uhu, I see,” the Mayor would’ve said warming up the idea more and more, he would’ve leaned back in his leather chair and asked “And where do you suppose we get all the money for this Jim?”

Jim would’ve just smiled and pull out a check book and say, ” How much you think it would cost?”

But, alas, for my time spent researching I couldn’t find a great story to tell about a man and his dream. To build a multi story aquarium with that “features a collection of over 12,500 animals representing over 650 different species.” The over the facilities focus, “on the Pacific Ocean in three major permanent galleries, Southern California and Baja, Northern Pacific and Tropical Pacific,” because people he said he was crazy to have something of the sort. Yeah, crazy. Like a Shark. which has its own gallery too and a pool where you can touch some of the harmless ones. This and much much more…

No I found no such thing.

www.aquariumofthepacific.org