This TB has been in WA for over a year and has not yet visited the Seattle Aquarium! What gives?
I won't be going there any time soon, but I will put Fishbones into a baggie along with two Buy-1-Get-1-Free coupons for the aquarium, as encouragement for others.
Be aware, though, that in 1965-66, the Seattle Aquarium was the first establishment to successfully keep an orca whale in captivity ... if you can call keeping him alive for 1 year a "success". Namu's good disposition and trainability sparked a new trend of marine parks featuring performing orcas. To meet this new demand, 45 members of our local Southern Resident orca pod (mostly young females) were hunted down and sold into captivity (and at least 13 more were killed during the captures). Only one of these young orcas - who should have enjoyed a human length lifespan in the wild - is still alive today: Lolita, of the Miami Seaquarium.
The Southern Resident orcas are on the Endangered Species List, and one of the contributing factors to their demise is the lack of mature female community members to reproduce and expand the pod. If you want to blame this partially on the Seattle Aquarium and their display of Namu, I won't stop you! (to be fair, the Seattle Aquarium is now working to educate the community about the plight of our orcas ... but they still keep other marine mammals in confining enclosures).
OK, sorry about the rant. I'll drop Fishbones off in a cache closer to Seattle.
frotu33