Baja Bay

Our sea turtles are brothers! Hatched in 2003 at Sea World San Diego, they were hand-raised and have spent their lives as representatives of their species at Sea World and Monterey Bay Aquarium before coming to Tacoma. The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service does not consider them releasable to the wild.
Sunny weighs 108 pounds, is the more independent of the brothers and is picky about his food, aquarist Melissa Bishop says. Dramatic body language lets his caretakers know that he isn’t a fan of spinach.

Our sea turtles are brothers! Hatched in 2003 at Sea World San Diego, they were hand-raised and have spent their lives as representatives of their species at Sea World and Monterey Bay Aquarium before coming to Tacoma. The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service does not consider them releasable to the wild.
Azul, who weighs nearly 30 pounds less than his brother, “is definitely the more inquisitive and curious one,” says aquarist Melissa Bishop. “He is more laid back and likes attention. He’s almost always more interested in enrichments (special food items) than Sunny.”

Bruno is our Atlantic green sea turtle who arrived in 2020. Hatched in 1997, he’s around 156 pounds – bigger than Sunny and Azul. But he really likes rubbing shells with them! Read the story for more.

Scalloped hammerhead sharks (Sphyrna lewini) have the typical wide head of a hammerhead, but with ridges along the top. They eat fish, squid, crustaceans and especially stingrays, sometimes accumulating the stinging barbs in their mouth.

Because these hammerheads swim in schools of several hundred animals at certain times (unusual for top predators), they are easy for commercial fisheries to catch for oil, meat and skin. They’re endangered in many parts of the world, including the Baja California.

Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium worked with a marine biologist in Hawaii to obtain our juvenile scalloped hammerhead sharks from a sustainable “pupping ground” in Kaneohe Bay off the Island of Oahu. The sharks, each about 2-feet-long, came to Tacoma under a special permit issued by the state of Hawaii.

Spotted eagle rays (Aetobatus narinari) are one of the largest rays in the ocean, growing up to 10 feet across and 16 feet tip to tail. Found in warm water across the Indo-Pacific and Atlantic oceans, they have a distinctive pattern of small whitish spots across their dark gray-blue backs. They get their name from their wing-like pectoral fins, which seem to fly them through the water. A long, whip-like tail has up to 6 barbed spines at its base.

These rays eat a variety of fish, crustaceans, cephalopods, worms and mollusks, using their snouts to probe in mud for prey.

They are fished for meat and cartilage, and their tail for decoration, and are listed as near-threatened.

Who else is in Baja?

Look for convict tangs, Cortez angelfish, bigscale soldierfish, Panamic porkfish, Moorish idols, blue and gold snapper and other fish that love warm water. We’re adding more all the time!

Check out the kiosk next to the window to see photos and fun facts about each fish.

Gymnothorax mordax

Coming soon to Baja Bay!

These eels have a long, slender body covered in yellow slime and no fins to help them slide in and out of narrow crevices. Without gill covers to move oxygenated water over their gills, moray eels have to open and close their mouths to breathe.

They have two sets of jaws to help them devour prey – one to bite, the other to drag dinner down their throats.