Pacific Seas Aquarium
Now Open
The new Pacific Seas Aquarium is an underwater delight. Stare at hammerhead sharks or gaze at green sea turtles. Explore Pacific Coast habitats from cold Northwest to tropical Baja California. Find world-class art. Touch a jelly globe.
And it’s all free with Zoo admission or membership.
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 giant 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 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
Two dozen necks crane up, up, up, eyes riveted on the scene above, as four hammerhead sharks cruise overhead. Sunny the sea turtle joins the scene, swimming unhurriedly by and then diving deeper into his home. Suddenly, two eagle rays “fly” overhead, their pectoral fins gently flapping up and down to propel them through the … Continued
“Do you need more padding?” Kait Rhoads is standing, hands on hips, near a tentacled lump swathed in bubble wrap. Four men hover, poised to act. As one micro-adjusts a padding blanket on a lift, the others set hands on the bubble wrap. “Ready? One, two, three, up!” With two weeks to go until the … Continued
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