The Seaside Aquarium is a privately owned

aquarium An aquarium (: aquariums or aquaria) is a vivarium of any size having at least one transparent side in which aquatic plants or animals are kept and displayed. fishkeeping, Fishkeepers use aquaria to keep fish, invertebrates, amphibians, aquati ...

Seaside, Oregon Seaside is a city in Clatsop County, Oregon, United States, on the coast of the Pacific Ocean. The name Seaside is derived from ''Seaside House'', a historic summer resort built in the 1870s by railroad magnate Ben Holladay. The city's population ...

, United States. It is one of the oldest aquariums on the West Coast.

History

The building where the aquarium is located was built initially as a

natatorium A swimming pool, swimming bath, wading pool, paddling pool, or simply pool, is a structure designed to hold water to enable swimming and associated activities. Pools can be built into the ground (in-ground pools) or built above ground (as a ...

in the 1920s,Elizabeth Morris, Judy Jewell, Mark Morris, Bill McRa
Moon Oregon
(7th edition). Published by Avalon Travel, 2007; page 247. an indoor

saltwater Saline water (more commonly known as salt water) is water that contains a high concentration of dissolved salts (mainly sodium chloride). On the United States Geological Survey (USGS) salinity scale, saline water is saltier than brackish wat ...

public bath, with the water pumped from the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five Borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is ...

through a pipe still visible today at the tide line, and then heated. It featured balconies where people could watch others swim in the pool below. A decade later, the

Great Depression The Great Depression was a severe global economic downturn from 1929 to 1939. The period was characterized by high rates of unemployment and poverty, drastic reductions in industrial production and international trade, and widespread bank and ...

ended its economic feasibility. The building later served as a

salmon Salmon (; : salmon) are any of several list of commercially important fish species, commercially important species of euryhaline ray-finned fish from the genera ''Salmo'' and ''Oncorhynchus'' of the family (biology), family Salmonidae, native ...

rearing facility and then a place to watch

wrestling Wrestling is a martial art, combat sport, and form of entertainment that involves grappling with an opponent and striving to obtain a position of advantage through different throws or techniques, within a given ruleset. Wrestling involves di ...

matches. The aquarium was founded in 1937, making it one of the oldest in the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

. It uses the same pipe that was installed in the 1920s to fill the aquarium tanks.

Features

The Seaside Aquarium reports 100 species of marine life including 20-"arm"

sea stars A sea is a large body of salt water. There are particular seas and the sea. The sea commonly refers to the ocean, the interconnected body of seawaters that spans most of Earth. Particular seas are either marginal seas, second-order section ...

crab Crabs are decapod crustaceans of the infraorder Brachyura (meaning "short tailed" in Greek language, Greek), which typically have a very short projecting tail-like abdomen#Arthropoda, abdomen, usually hidden entirely under the Thorax (arthropo ...

wolf eel The wolf eel (''Anarrhichthys ocellatus'') is a species of marine ray-finned fish belonging to the family ''Anarhichadidae'', the wolf fishes. It is found in the North Pacific Ocean. Despite its common name and resemblance, it is not a true eel ...

moray eel Moray eels, or Muraenidae (), are a family (biology), family of eels whose members are found worldwide. There are approximately 200 species in 15 genera which are almost exclusively Marine (ocean), marine, but several species are regu ...

s, and

octopuses An octopus (: octopuses or octopodes) is a soft-bodied, eight-limbed Mollusca, mollusc of the order (biology), order Octopoda (, ). The order consists of some 300 species and is grouped within the class Cephalopoda with squids, cuttlefish, ...

. The Seaside Aquarium established the first program to breed

harbor seal The harbor (or harbour) seal (''Phoca vitulina''), also known as the common seal, is a true seal found along temperate and Arctic marine coastlines of the Northern Hemisphere. The most widely distributed species of pinniped (walruses, eared sea ...

s in captivity and allows visitors the chance to feed its seals. During March 2013, a boat lost during the

2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami On 11 March 2011, at 14:46:24 Japan Standard Time, JST (05:46:24 UTC), a 9.0–9.1 Submarine earthquake, undersea megathrust earthquake occurred in the Pacific Ocean, east of the Oshika Peninsula of the Tōhoku region. It lasted approx ...

drifted across the Pacific Ocean and washed up on the shores of Washington carrying trapped live fish. The sole remaining so-called tsunami fish was put on display at the Seaside Aquarium.

References

External links

* {{Zoos of Oregon 1937 establishments in Oregon Aquaria in Oregon Buildings and structures in Clatsop County, Oregon Oregon Coast Seaside, Oregon Tourist attractions in Clatsop County, Oregon