We've lost Stapeley Water Gardens and Rare Species Conservation Centre already this year and now we are going to lose the aquarium in Blackpool Tower. It is due to shut its doors in November. There has been an aquarium there since 1875 so this is in someways one of the most significant loses from the UK zoo scene for some time. The attraction is now managed by the Merlin Group who also own the Sealife Centre just a few yards along the road. Anyone know anything about a new collection opening at Smestow, near Wolverhampton?
Anyone know anything about a new collection opening at Smestow, near Wolverhampton?[/QUOTE] The owner, Roger Pearson who is working on tv and films with his animals but his website is weird. The Animal Man Homepage
I think there has been some form of animal collection at Smestow Mill for several years but I tried to find it once and failed miserably.
The process of closing the aquarium has begun, with 200 animals due to move in the next few days, the majority of which will be moved to the nearby sea life centre. End of the road for Tower Aquarium - Blackpool Today
Very sad. But judging from a 2006 Zoo Inspection Report I saw the Tower Aquarium needed considerable structural repairs from years of under funding. http://www.blackpool.gov.uk/democracy/members/admin/files/10bd55f2-3f8e-4e83-9774-787202cb8fbc/tower%20aquarium%20inspection%20report2.pdf No doubt the large sea turtles will now be labelled as 'rescued' and sent to a 'turtle sanctuary' - aka an normal aquarium exhibit labelled for emotive spin conveniently in a Sealife Centre
Thanks for that. For some reason I thought they were still at Blackpool. I haven't been to the aquarium for years and was judging by the information in the 2006 Inspection Report. This was compounded by BBC 4 doing a series of documentaries on Blackpool last August - Dream Town: A Brief Anatomy of Blackpool - which showed the turtles at the Tower; clearly that wasn't contemporary footage and on now checking it now transpires this was made in 1994!!
Practical Fish Keeping ran a story on this today: End of the line for Tower Aquarium | News | Practical Fishkeeping
I've only ever been to one, Weymouth. Extortionate rip off is what i call it, theres a thread about it somewhere.
My view of SeaLife: Most of the centres are perfectly pleasant places to visit and I usually enjoy them (indeed in the last year some very nice species have been brought into the UK by SeaLife), BUT: 1) as Johnny Morris says, they are very expensive - £18 for a couple of hours in Birmingham SeaLife feels extortionate to me. 2) they're just all a bit same-y; with so many centres it'd be nice if they could differentiate a bit more 3) they give off an aura of arrogance - as evidenced by taking in animals from other institutions and branding them 'rescued' 4) their publicity material is sanctimonious (calling all their exhibits for non-fish 'sanctuaries', for instance) and their so-called beliefs questionable - for years their leaflets carried a very specific statement that they were against keeping Sand Tiger Sharks in captivity. When they acquired London Aquarium, complete with Sand Tigers, did they move on the Sand Tigers by point of principle? No - they just removed the objection from the leaflets... So, I'm not about to boycott them or anything, but I have quite a few reservations - though I wish to point out that the objections are all directed at their managing company, not the staff at individual centres, who are generally very helpful and professional.
Having checked the archive, as it were, the Tower turtles are the ones now at Birmingham (2x Green Sea Turtle) and Brighton (1x Green and 1x Loggerhead Turtle).
The problem I see it with Sealife is that they are a visitor attraction before being a zoological collection – there is a subtle different. When Sealife started it was a rather low-key aquarium display primarily native marine fish albeit in some innovative ways with the development acrylic tanks of various forms and shapes we now take for granted. However, it is now just a small part of the entertainment giant Merlin Entertainment and you can clearly see it is operated by marketing people and accountants not zoo people. They breed very little of the display stock and the take a rather pompous hypocritical attitude by, for example, labelling exhibits as ‘sanctuaries’ –which they are not. They make dubious position statements on the keeping of cetaceans in captivity even to the point of lying that the UK have banned the keeping of this species, which they have not. And as Maguari's points out they still have sand-tigers at London Aquarium after they took it over despite them making public statements that they didn't not approve of the keeping of this species. They (Merlin) also have a dolphin show in their Gardaland park in Italy. Moreover as re the cetaceans, this was, in fact (IMHO) a ploy to try and placate the animal-rights activist when the took over the old Brighton Aquarium and also involved the dubious action of giving Brighton’s last two long term captive dolphins to the Into Blue Project which released these animals to an unknown fate in the Caribbean. Unfortunately for Sealife these actions back fired on them when they tried to build a seal and otter pool on the entrance outside area at Brighton and then had the very same activists and groups such as Born Free Foundation they tried to court, protesting and resulting in the plans being abandon. UK Indymedia | Protesters victory over Brighton Sealife Centre They pay lip-service to conservation but seem to do very little. People I know who have worked for them and moved on tend not to be very impressed with them on many levels. I also agree with Maguari's many points and also echo the point the problems I highlight above stem from the company's corporate ethos and not the front-line staff who obviously do the best that they can for the husbandry of the animals in there care. It is not by chance that a number of zoo aquarist refer to Sealife in private as the MacDonald’s of the aquarium industry. One final point which I have discussed with colleagues - some former Sealife employers - is that there must come a time when Sealife will run out of steam. You can not continue to build more and more aqauriums based a very basic template before customers start getting bored with this very basic and expensive concept. Sealife have already reviewed and sold off a number of their smaller (less profitable?) centres which actaully continue to do well and expand and on face value seem to have a more zoological ethos. Personally I suspect like dolphinaria the Sealife concept will wane and like dolphinaria in Europe and the US only the better will survive.
