Blog

Greetings from the Coral Triangle! We are excited to share some news from Bali, Indonesia, about a special place, home to fascinating marine creatures like southern sunfish and manta rays.

But first, have you heard of the Coral Triangle?

The Coral Triangle is a geographic area in the tropics that includes waters of six countries: Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Timor-Leste and the Solomon Islands. Unlike countries, which are delineated by political boundaries, the Coral Triangle is defined by its marine biodiversity. More than 500 species of hard corals are found in these waters.

This week our online engagement is for the birds—literally! Join us online May 18–22 to learn about the fascinating feathered friends that make their homes at the Seattle Aquarium with videos, activities, trivia and more.

Below is a schedule of events that you can tune in for throughout the week, plus activities for kids of all ages. We’ll also be featuring fun facts and other compelling content on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Join us for a week of online learning and fun!

Just as a sunny getaway goes by all quickly, so did this week—how is it Friday already?! We had a great time virtually traveling to the tropics with you, showing you some of the research we’re doing and offering you fun, educational activities to do at home.

Speaking of activities, we're happy to offer you a couple of bonus, coral-focused activity videos to round out the week. Take a look and learn something new!

The Seattle Aquarium has been conducting research in the waters off the Big Island of Hawaii every year since 2009—and this year’s trip was fortunately scheduled and completed before the COVID-19 crisis took hold in the U.S.

Follow along as Seattle Aquarium Curator of Conservation Research Dr. Shawn Larson shares her travel journal (and incredible photos) from the experience!

You can still enjoy a virtual trip to the tropics, even while staying home. Grab your virtual sunscreen because this week, May 11–15, we’ll be spotlighting some of the amazing animals that make their homes in the warmer waters of the Pacific!

Below is a schedule of events that you can tune in for throughout the week, plus activities for kids of all ages. We’ll also be featuring fun facts and other fascinating content on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Join us for a week of online learning and fun!

What an amazing and humbling week it was, as so many of you stepped up and made a commitment to GiveBIG to the Seattle Aquarium. With your generous support, we reached our full $50,000 match and then some! Thank you again to Pat & Al Friedrich, Brad & Lesley Canfield, Susie Sheppard Wyckoff, and the Kongsgaard Goldman Fund for providing the match funds—and to every single individual who supported the Aquarium this week!

Eating sustainably means more than making conscientious choices when purchasing seafood*, meat and dairy—it also means reducing waste and making the most of what you have on hand, which is especially important as we all stay home and reduce shopping trips to curb the spread of COVID-19 through our community.

And this week, we’re excited to share a recipe from the Aquarium café’s Executive Chef Molly DeMers, who got creative and flexible with some staples in her home kitchen to create a simple, delicious, meatless meal.

What do humans have to do with the Seattle Aquarium? Well…just about everything. And this week, May 4–8, we’re going to introduce you to some of the many people who make the Aquarium experience possible, even when—ESPECIALLY when—we’re temporarily closed to the public. Check out this video of our staff working in the exhibits and behind the scenes!

You might be surprised to know that there’s a lot more to working at the Seattle Aquarium than caring for our animals (although, of course, that’s our top priority). Regardless of our roles, we work at the Seattle Aquarium because we’re passionate about the marine environment—and we want to share that passion with you. Online for now and—as soon as it’s deemed safe—in person.

What has three hearts, about 1,600 suckers and is using eight arms to wave goodbye to Cephalopod Week? If you’ve been following along, you know we’re talking about the giant Pacific octopus! We hope this latest week of at-home engagement has been fun, educational and inspirational.

And we couldn’t close out the week without squeezing in a few details about the annual giant Pacific octopus survey in Puget Sound, which we launched in 2000. While there’s no way to know how many octopuses are living in our local waters, these annual surveys provide a good sense of population trends.

These animals are so amazing that we’re devoting an entire week to them—but, first things first, what exactly are they?

Cephalopods are a class of marine mollusks that includes squids, cuttlefishes and octopuses. They share many common characteristics: they can move by expelling water from a tubular siphon under their heads; they have arms (which usually have suckers) around the fronts of their heads; they have three hearts and highly developed eyes; and they squirt ink to hide and/or defend themselves.

Blog by Andrea Elderkin
Member Engagement Coordinator, Washington Autism Alliance and Advocacy

Last December, in my role as the Member Engagement Coordinator for Washington Autism Aliance and Advocacy (WAAA), I had the opportunity to join Seattle Aquarium staff and volunteers to talk about how they can better serve our community. I encountered a room full of caring and passionate people, that really want to do everything they can to support the Autism Community. Everyone was eager to learn and embrace inclusion and diversity.

Did you know that our expert team of divers periodically collects giant Pacific octopuses from the waters of Puget Sound and the Salish Sea so we can educate our visitors about how amazing and important they are—and then returns them to the same locations where they were collected so they can complete their life cycles and reproduce?