The Local Tourist Pt. 3: Bizarre Reef Creatures And Up Close With Stingrays At The Zoo
Posted May 29, 2008 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
A report released earlier this month on the state of Toronto’s tourism industry stated the city is not perceived as a “Must See/Must Do” destination among Canadian and American travellers.
Click here to read the full report.
In “The Local Tourist” series CityNews.ca writer Shawne McKeown and videographer Brian McKechnie set out to rediscover some of Toronto’s best-known attractions and report back with some neat and new findings on familiar places. We checked out the Toronto Zoo‘s new Great Barrier Reef exhibit in our third story and met a bizarre cast of colourful characters.
Standing in front of the large community tank at the Toronto Zoo’s new Great Barrier Reef exhibit watching the colourful cast of characters swim past could be considered a form of education and relaxation.
Zoo representative Katie Gray provided CityNews.ca with a tour of the impressive new feature in the recently refurbished Australasia pavilion and said many visitors are mesmerized by the dazzling colours and graceful movements of the over 1,000 fish inside the massive tank.
The incredible tropical fish are just one part of this new exhibit, which opened May 16 and also includes live coral, seahorses, a bizarre-looking species of jellyfish called moon jellies, and animals and reptiles.
The zoo also recently launched its Stingray Bay area, which was not running at full capacity shortly after opening due to the sudden death of dozens of stingrays at a similar display at the Calgary Zoo earlier this month.
“There’s no reason for concern (in Toronto), we’re just being precautious,” Gray said when we visited the zoo last week.
“Right now, due to the situation in Calgary, just for the short term we’ve modified it, so it’s only a dollar per person … and you get to come and see the stingrays in this huge 60,500 litre pool that we built just for them.”
The display has since fully reopened and visitors can now actually touch the incredible creatures. Tickets for this short-term exhibit featuring 30 stingrays cost only $3. It closes in October.
“They’re very unique, they almost fly through the water,” Gray said of the interesting and often friendly creatures.
Back in the Australasia pavilion Gray points out some alien-looking fish that appear to be pulsing through a large tank.
These translucent creatures are called moon jellies and zoo staff had to take special care in preparing their tank.
“They’re just the most bizarre looking things that quite likely people wouldn’t see in the wild,” Gray explained.
“The fish tanks that we have, they’re very, very tricky to have to manage them and learn to get the temperature, the chemicals, everything just right. Our moon jellies – we have to have a current in the tank.”
The jellies are capable of only limited motion and depend on currents to move about. Zoo staff place water balloons inside the tank periodically to ensure the movement of the water is just right.
“You don’t realize all the little details when you haven’t had these exhibits up and running before that you really have to research and learn about to open something of this magnitude,” Gray said, adding zoo staff worked in conjunction with other facilities and accredited coral breeders to put together this exhibit.
“(Coral) is one of the things that has been deemed as being illegal to grow in the wild, so there are breeders and specialists who will breed this and that’s where we got ours from,” she noted.
Gray showed us a species that many people find fascinating – the seahorse.
“People love seahorses, people are fascinated by seahorses. I don’t know if it’s because the males give birth … but there’s something very unique about the look of them,” she said.
The Great Barrier Reef exhibit also includes some furry animals and reptiles, including a cute sugar glider, a tree kangaroo, and a pair of Komodo dragons.
The Toronto Zoo is considered one of the best in North America and Gray said a large number of its visitors are local.
“Our market tends to be very heavily local and we are very well supported by our membership,” she explained, adding many members are new moms who come to the zoo to take their babies for a stroll. A membership pays for itself after about two visits.
“In my opinion, the nicest time to come to the zoo is in the fall and a lot of people don’t think of it.”
The Toronto Zoo may be the envy of other North American urban facilities because it has incredible potential for expansion.
“We definitely have the luxury of being one of the largest physical zoos. We’re not in the middle of like a downtown area so we have that room to spread. It’s 710 acres that we own,” she said.
“That gives us the opportunity to expand and to have some really large exhibits for our animals.”
- The Toronto Zoo, located north of the 401 on Meadowvale Avenue, is open from 9am to 7:30pm until September 1. Fall and winter hours take effect after that. For admission prices and information on other features, click here.
Be sure to check out the first two parts of my The Local Tourist series:
Rediscovering The Ontario Science Centre
And make sure you check back Friday for the fourth installment where we follow a group of Chinese journalists on a walking tour of Toronto’s famous and historic St.Lawrence Market.
