Vancouver Aquarium
the Vancouver Aquarium is always a fun place to explore!
Last week my partner and I were out for a walk in Stanley Park and we decided to pop into the Vancouver Aquarium and check things out. We've been there before 
but it's been a while, and they had an amazing exhibition going on: Birds of Prey - In Flight. And when they say "In Flight" apparently they mean it! They had several birds of prey and they were free to fly around the crowd, outside, in the open air. Bird handlers used trained birds and the flew from perch to perch around the crowd. Unfortunately we were late in getting to the show and we only caught the last bird, the bald eagle.
Opening soon (date not released as I wrote this) is a new 4D theater experience. 
Included in the regular price of admission the shows will be running for approximately 15 minutes, and contain "wind, mist, scents and dramatic lighting!" along with video. The first show is titled Planet Earth: Shallow Seas 4-D Experience. I can not wait for this!!!
The Vancouver Aquarium is committed to conservation. They do this by "display and interpretation, education, research and direct action". I feel they do a great job of showing Vancouverites how amazing our waters are. Tourists get a great show, but I imagine they expect that. Not having much of a preformed idea about what may be found in our wild life they accept we have some great wildlife. But I think as residents we tend to normalize things. The Vancouver Aquarium shows us that we have some amazing sea life, incredible invertebrates, fabulous fish's. There is much more colour on local waters than I would have thought. As a reef keeper myself (we have a 27gal reef tank) it all has me seriously wanting a local water tank.
Check out the Vancouver Aquarium conservation pages for a full listing of their works.
Their commitment to conservation includes:
Ocean Wise, a program that aims to educate restaurants and other food service providers, and the general public, on selecting sustainable seafood's. People can select ocean friendly meals by looking for the Ocean Wise symbol on menus and packages.
TD Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup. This is a program started in 1994 by small number of aquarium staff in response to The Ocean Conservancy's International Coastal Cleanup. Volunteers are organized and they under take to clear beach's of garbage.
Marine Mammal Rescue and Rehabilitation Program. This program aims to rescue and rehabilitate marine mammals that are injured or sick, sometimes abandoned, working with them until they can be released back into the wild. Among their more public rescues was Springer, an orphaned killer whale that was rescued and reunited with her family. Every year they help some 100 mammals, including harbor seals, elephant seals, steller sea lions, sea otters, dolphins and harbor porpoises.
A little Aquarium history.
The Vancouver Aquarium began in 1950 when the Vancouver Public Aquarium Association was created. It first opened it's doors in June 15th 1956. Original financial support came from H. R. MacMillan, alderman and businessman George Cunningham, and $100,000 from the city of Vancouver, and the provincial and federal governments of Canada. The aquarium is operated by a not for profit organization that receives no further government funding. The land, Stanley Park, is owned by the City of Vancouver and was leased to the Aquarium for only $1 a year, that is until 1991 when the amount went up to $40,000 a year.
In 1996 the Aquarium, Vancouver parks Board and other concerned groups, came to an agreement where the Vancouver Aquarium would no longer capture whales, dolphins, or porpoises for display. That they would only obtained these animals from other facilities and only if those animals were not captured before 1996 or were injured, rescued and then deemed un-releasable.