Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
THE SAN SIMEON DREAM
There's no question that the rapid success of Sea World was due
primarily to the marine mammal shows. They were first and fore-
most what people came to see. Once in the park, however, many
visitors were fascinated by the fish and invertebrate exhibits. See-
ing this, and having seen the reactions of visitors to the many non-
mammal exhibits at Steinhart Aquarium, I felt that a good aquar-
ium without performing mammals, located in an area with
potential visitors, could well succeed.
In the 1950s I'd made trips with the UCLA ichthyology class
to central California to collect in the rich tide pools near San
Simeon. Located on the slopes above that little town is Hearst
Castle, the ostentatious mansion built in the 1920s by the news-
paper magnate William Randolph Hearst. Although o¤ the
beaten track, the castle was visited by six hundred thousand people
in 1971. Highway 1, known for its beautiful ocean views, runs along
the coast from Morro Bay north to Big Sur and Monterey—and
right past San Simeon. This location struck me as a perfect place
for a small marine aquarium focusing on the abundant and di-
verse marine life of the area.
I contacted Roy Marquardt, who had financed the 1964 Cali-
fornia Academy expedition to the Sea of Cortez and had always
been a big supporter of Steinhart Aquarium, and told him about
my idea. Agreeing that it was a good project, he contacted a San
Luis Obispo-area resident he knew who owned land along the
coast just half a mile south of San Simeon. This man, too, be-
came interested in the possibility of an aquarium on his property.
I was very excited to have found a financial backer and a po-
tential site for the aquarium; it was beginning to look as if this
project would work. The location was good, the water quality was
excellent for an open or semi-open seawater system, and I felt sure
a small aquarium could be self-supporting. I returned to San Diego
full of enthusiasm and drew up plans.
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