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17
AQUARISTS AT WORK
D
ESIGN OF THE AQUARIUM
was progressing well and it was now time
to hire key sta¤ members for the husbandry department. Skilled people
are not easy to find, so putting a competent sta¤ together would mean
luring them away from other aquariums. Fortunately, the world of pub-
lic aquariums is small, and I was acquainted with most of the experi-
enced aquarists on the West Coast and knew their situations.
I had met Chuck Farwell, assistant curator of the Scripps Aquarium
in La Jolla, ten years before when I was at Sea World. I knew he wasn't
too happy with the existing situation at Scripps, so I called to ask him
if he'd be interested in joining me in Monterey. Chuck jumped at the
chance; he also said that he could highly recommend Mark Ferguson,
a truly dedicated aquarist who had started out as a volunteer at Scripps
and was now working as a senior aquarist. Both Chuck and Mark were
hired, and they moved up to Monterey within short order.
I needed one more experienced aquarist and thought immediately
of Michael Weekley from the Seattle Aquarium. Prior to going to Seat-
tle, Mike had been an aquarist at the Waikiki Aquarium under di-
rector Bruce Carlson. He had specialized in the collection and hus-
bandry of a deep-sea cephalopod, the chambered nautilus (
Nautilus
pompilius
).
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