Pacific Seas Aquarium
Opening Friday Sept. 7
Opening Sept. 7, 2018, the new Pacific Seas Aquarium is an underwater delight. Stare at hammerhead sharks or gaze at green sea turtles in Pacific Coast habitats from cold Northwest to tropical Baja California.
But it takes a community to build an aquarium. While much of the $51.6 million budget is coming from a voter-approved Tacoma tax bond, The Zoo Society is working to raise $4.2 million to close the gap. Help us build this jewel for our city.
Discover the Pacific Seas
Explore Habitats
Baja Bay is the centerpiece of the Pacific Seas Aquarium – a 280,000-gallon warm-water exhibit, home to scalloped hammerhead sharks, green sea turtles and spotted eagle rays, plus dozens of other tropical fish species, like you’d find in the Gulf of California. Come and dive in!
Northwest Waters is a 100,000-gallon exhibit full of stunning Northwest marine life from pink waving anemones to 30-year-old rockfish, ratfish, salmon, sturgeon, lingcod, even a wolf eel – all behind a massive 25-foot-wide, 10-foot-tall window. See what’s right on our doorstep in the cold waters of Puget Sound.
One of the world’s largest crab species – the Japanese spider crab – on view through an 8-by-4-foot glass wall.
A hands-on, up-close marine animal experience touching the same tidal creatures you’d find at low tide in Puget Sound. Feel the rough texture of sea stars, the spikiness of sea urchins, and the hardness of crab shells…
Giant strands of kelp wave in the water, echoing in replica the kelp forests of Southern California, with leopard sharks, a moray eel and California sheephead fish swimming through them.
In a globe spilling endlessly with water, moon jellyfish swirl and float, mesmerizing and vibrant. It’s one of only two jelly globes in the entire country, surrounded by several other jelly exhibits.
Brainy and beautiful, the giant Pacific octopus is the largest octopus species in the world. Get close-up views of this mesmerizing creature, along with rockfish and colorful anemones.
A peek into the magical world of sea life under the Narrows Bridges: wolf eels hiding under girders, anemones waving with the tides, sea stars clambering over rocks.
As you approach the aquarium entrance, you’ll walk right past this 4,500-gallon outdoor exhibit, soon to be teeming with sea stars, anemones and urchins amid the moving waves that would create their tidal habitat in nearby Puget Sound.|
Aquarists care
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It takes dedication to be an aquarist, as well as training and time.
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Our aquarists spend hundreds of hours getting to know our animals.
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Feeding sharks
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Using objects the animals have been trained to recognize, each gets its own portion.
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It can take awhile! But the aquarists work patiently until everyone is satisfied.
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Water is life
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Water in the aquarium is pumped straight up from Puget Sound, filtered and warmed through a complex web of pipes.
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After it washes nutrients over our animals, it’s treated and flows back into the Sound – no pollution, no waste.
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Protecting the Ocean
THE THREAT: Our oceans are beautiful – but they face many threats, from plastic pollution to chemicals, oil, overfishing and acidification. Many of the animals in our aquarium are threatened in the wild.
TAKE ACTION: But we can help – the ocean is in our hands. Find out what you can do by visiting the Waves of Change gallery inside the aquarium, or exploring our Protecting Wildlife pages.
Aquarium Stories
In Kait Rhoads’ Seattle studio, four people are making a jellyfish. Focusing intently, they thread glass circles onto long steel tentacles, weaving copper wire in and out to keep the circles in place. Even with light floating through the big windows and art and plants everywhere, it’s a tedious job. But the atmosphere’s upbeat. Rhoads’ … Continued
Through four years of dreaming, mentoring staff, caring for animals and watching a building rise, Neil Allen has kept one vision in sight for the Pacific Seas Aquarium, coming late summer to Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium. “There’s nothing like seeing little kids running up, pressing their noses against the glass and saying, ‘Wow,’ ” … Continued
Sunny and Azul, the green sea turtles waiting patiently for their new home in the aquarium’s Baja Bay exhibit, passed their first physical wellness exam this month with flying colors – and got a treat as a reward for being good patients. Watch the video here.