TACOMA, Wash. — The Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium is celebrating Shark Week with eye-to-eye shark dives.
The aquarium has seen a huge spike in visitors since Washington officially reopened at the end of June.
Around this time last year, COVID-19 restrictions held the Zoo at 25% capacity, which was around 1,800 people a day. Since the reopening, that number has swelled to 4,500.
Workers at the aquarium are excited with the growing number of visitors because it’s a chance to keep the public aware about keeping the marine ecosystem healthy.
“It just makes such a difference in all of our days, and it’s just so good to feel like we’re meeting our mission here, which is to get people excited and inspired about the ocean,” said Heidi Wilken, who serves as the diving safety officer at the Point Defiance Aquarium.
The hope is that excitement can turn into action because the impact of climate change can’t be ignored when it comes to the Puget Sound.
“We’re definitely seeing changes,” Wilken said. “One of the biggest ones has been sea star wasting disease, where huge amounts of the sea stars have been completely wiped out. Even though the exact mechanism of what causes that is still being investigated, most scientists think that it is related to warming ocean temperatures.”
Workers hope that visitors will leave the park more aware of how their actions affect the wildlife, and do more to protect the beauty in their own backyard.
“A lot of times, people think Puget Sound is dark and you can’t see anything, but there are places that’re just as colorful and beautiful as a coral reef in Australia, and we really try to highlight that in our exhibits in our aquarium, and I wish more people knew that,” Wilken said.