Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
and the subject of how to fund it came up. They decided to approach
Nancy and Julie's parents, David and Lucile Packard, to see if they might
be talked into funding it. David Packard was chairman and co-founder
of the Hewlett Packard Corporation. He could certainly a¤ord to
finance it if he could just be convinced that it was practical.
However, before jumping into what might be a harebrained scheme
in a field he knew little about, Packard commissioned the Stanford Re-
search Institute to do a feasibility study. The conclusion of the study
was favorable, indicating that a small aquarium on Cannery Row could
be financially successful and might expect an attendance of around
350,000 a year. With this good news the enthusiasm of the aquarium's
planners grew, and so did the scope of their ideas.
The main exhibit was to be a large roundabout similar in concept
to the new Fish Roundabout at Steinhart. As with the Roundabout,
the visitors would be in the center and the aquarium would surround
them. Within the large tank would be re-creations of the major sub-
tidal environments of Monterey: the kelp forest, deep granite reefs, shale
beds, and the sandy seafloor. The animals and plants found in those
environments—giant kelp (
Macrocystis pyrifera
), sea otters (
Enhydra
lutris
), rockfish, sea perch, lingcod (
Ophiodon elongatus
), flatfish, sar-
dines, and a host of invertebrates—would all live in this large, un-
partitioned exhibit.
The assumption was that because certain animals are found in well-
defined environments in Monterey Bay, they would stay in the ap-
propriate environment in the roundabout. Unfortunately, I knew that
wouldn't work. With predators and prey in the same exhibit, the preda-
tors would seek out or ambush potential prey and in a short time the
only ones left would be the ones with the biggest mouths. For a few
weeks, of course, we would see the concept of survival of the fittest—
and the hungriest—in action.
The three major problem species were the sea otters, the lingcod,
and the salmon. Sea otters, being the intelligent and curious mammals
they are, would quickly eat everything they found edible and then would
destroy much of the rest of the exhibit through their curiosity and play-
fulness. I expected that they would pretty much trash the exhibit within
a month. Meanwhile, the lingcod, well-camouflaged ambush preda-
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