Marineland of the pacific - A Fascination for Fish: Adventures of an Underwater Pioneer - page 18

irreverent sense of humor and seemed to be having fun in everything
he did.
Ken died in August 1998, and among the outpouring of tributes paid
to him by students and colleagues, Lawrence Ford said: “Ken taught with
love, but [half ] of loving somebody [is] getting out of their way. So he
would set up the situation that gave the students a sense of trust enough
so that they could open themselves up to test out being creative....
Then he got out of their way.” He was an extraordinary human being
who had a powerful influence on all he came into contact with.
PIONEERING BREAKTHROUGHS
At Marineland we made many breakthroughs in the collection, hus-
bandry, and exhibition of marine animals. Under the creative direc-
tion of Ken Norris, together with biologists Bill McFarland, John
Prescott, and Don Zumwalt, aquarist Jerry Goldsmith, and the highly
skilled and knowledgeable collector Frank Brocato, we were able to
present to visitors animals never before seen in aquariums. Nothing
seemed too big a challenge. Marineland sta¤ even captured the first
whale ever to be displayed in an aquarium. A one-ton female pilot whale
( Globicephala macrorhynchus ) named “Bubbles” was trained to partic-
ipate in the marine mammal performances alongside the bottlenose
dolphins and the beautiful Pacific white-sided dolphins.
The main exhibit of fishes was housed in the half-million-gallon Oval
Tank, a hundred feet long by fifty feet wide and open to the sky. Vis-
itors could view from above and on two levels underwater through rel-
atively small, double-pane, tempered-glass windows evenly spaced all
around the tank.
Frank Brocato and “Boots” Calandrino did a remarkable job of col-
lecting a wide variety of California game fishes for the Oval Tank and
other exhibits. As former commercial fishermen, they had learned the
habits and behavior of many kinds of fish. But there is a crucial di¤er-
ence between catching fishes for the market and bringing them back
alive and healthy for an aquarium. Ken, Frank, and Boots therefore
worked hard to develop new types of equipment that would catch fish
without injury.