T
teffectress
Guest
Detroit is planning to shut down its historic 101 year old aquarium to save money. The Belle Isle Aquarium is located on historic Belle Island and is home to many endangered species of fish, some of which are extinct in the wild. It is also the oldest operating aquarium in the United States.
Friends Of The Belle Isle Aquarium are trying to stop the city of Detroit from making another historic building a deserted eye sore. For more information please go to http://belleisleaquarium.com/.
We would greatly appreciate it if people would show up to our Walk-about on January 23 at 11am at Belle Isle Aquarium so show the city of Detroit that its citizens do not support the idea of shutting down this important piece of Detroit history and breeder of endangered fish species.
For those of you not familiar with the aquarium, a brief history:
The Belle Isle Aquarium is North America's oldest continuously operating public aquarium. It was opened in 1904 and is located on Belle Isle, the Detroit River's beautiful 1,000-acre park. The Aquarium currently displays 60 exhibits with a total capacity of 32,000 gallons of water. It is also home to 1,500 individual animals of 146 species. Of these species, 18 are officially listed as endangered, threatened, or already extinct in the wild.
There are approximately 10,000 gallons of refrigerated fresh water featuring many native Detroit River species such as trout, bass, pike, perch and walleye. The remaining exhibits are tropical freshwater and marine displays, including coral reef fish.
Endangered or very rare species exhibited include Charco La Palma pupfish, desert pupfish, green goodeids, blue-tailed goodeids, golden skiffia and Lake Victoria mouthbrooders.
The Aquarium is best known for successfully breeding and rearing freshwater stingrays including the dwarf, checkerboard and occelated species. The most notable success is with the occelated stingray which has been raised through three generations.
Offspring of dwarf stingrays have been distributed to more than twelve institutions across the United States. Two of those institutions have also produced captive-born offspring using the Belle Isle Aquarium's technique. In fact, the Aquarium has earned the prestigious Zoo and Aquarium Bean Award in 1976, 1980 and 1985 for its success.
Perhaps the most popular stop at the Aquarium is the electric eel exhibit. This unique display dramatizes the discharges of the eel in visual and audible demonstrations.
Today Belle Isle is ranked fifth among major urban parks in America, after Golden Gate in San
Francisco, Central Park in New York, Balboa Park in San Diego, and Oglebay Park in Wheeling, W.Va.
I apologise if this is not the proper forum to put a thread like this in, but I feel that loosing Belle Isle would be a great loss to the aquarium and zoological societies.
--
Diana
[email protected]
FOBIA Human Resource Manager
http://belleisleaquarium.com/
Friends Of The Belle Isle Aquarium are trying to stop the city of Detroit from making another historic building a deserted eye sore. For more information please go to http://belleisleaquarium.com/.
We would greatly appreciate it if people would show up to our Walk-about on January 23 at 11am at Belle Isle Aquarium so show the city of Detroit that its citizens do not support the idea of shutting down this important piece of Detroit history and breeder of endangered fish species.
For those of you not familiar with the aquarium, a brief history:
The Belle Isle Aquarium is North America's oldest continuously operating public aquarium. It was opened in 1904 and is located on Belle Isle, the Detroit River's beautiful 1,000-acre park. The Aquarium currently displays 60 exhibits with a total capacity of 32,000 gallons of water. It is also home to 1,500 individual animals of 146 species. Of these species, 18 are officially listed as endangered, threatened, or already extinct in the wild.
There are approximately 10,000 gallons of refrigerated fresh water featuring many native Detroit River species such as trout, bass, pike, perch and walleye. The remaining exhibits are tropical freshwater and marine displays, including coral reef fish.
Endangered or very rare species exhibited include Charco La Palma pupfish, desert pupfish, green goodeids, blue-tailed goodeids, golden skiffia and Lake Victoria mouthbrooders.
The Aquarium is best known for successfully breeding and rearing freshwater stingrays including the dwarf, checkerboard and occelated species. The most notable success is with the occelated stingray which has been raised through three generations.
Offspring of dwarf stingrays have been distributed to more than twelve institutions across the United States. Two of those institutions have also produced captive-born offspring using the Belle Isle Aquarium's technique. In fact, the Aquarium has earned the prestigious Zoo and Aquarium Bean Award in 1976, 1980 and 1985 for its success.
Perhaps the most popular stop at the Aquarium is the electric eel exhibit. This unique display dramatizes the discharges of the eel in visual and audible demonstrations.
Today Belle Isle is ranked fifth among major urban parks in America, after Golden Gate in San
Francisco, Central Park in New York, Balboa Park in San Diego, and Oglebay Park in Wheeling, W.Va.
I apologise if this is not the proper forum to put a thread like this in, but I feel that loosing Belle Isle would be a great loss to the aquarium and zoological societies.
--
Diana
[email protected]
FOBIA Human Resource Manager
http://belleisleaquarium.com/
