The Virginia Aquarium and Marine Science Centre is dedicated to the exploration and conservation of marine life. Featuring more than 8,000 animals from 300 different species, the aquarium provides visitors with an immersive experience by showing a variety of aquatic habitats. Visitors can observe a diverse range of marine creatures, including sharks, otters, and sea turtles. Its mission is to foster understanding and appreciation for the ocean’s biodiversity and the importance of conservation efforts.
Virginia Aquarium has recently reopened its expanded South Building after almost five years. The AZA-accredited institution’s renovated spaces feature interactive exhibits, touch pools, immersive experiences, an interactive water quality lab and a veterinary care centre.
Making a difference
Cynthia Whitbred-Spanoulis is president and CEO of Virginia Aquarium and executive director of the Virginia Aquarium Foundation. Previously, she worked in local government and, before that, in federal government.
“I worked in the US House of Representatives for a congressman,” she tells blooloop. “At that time, I wanted to make impactful decisions in impactful areas for the world. I realised that by moving into the local area I would be more impactful.”
In 1995, she started in the city of Virginia Beach:
“I worked there for 16 years in economic development, working with start-up companies. I enjoyed what I did. But when people asked me, ‘If you won the lottery and didn’t have to work, what would you do?’ I would always say, ‘I want to work with animals.’ That was always my passion.”
Accordingly, in 2012, she came to the Virginia Aquarium:
“While technically I don’t get actually to work with the animals, I do get to make impactful changes in their lives, as well as in the lives of our visitors and anyone enjoying our educational programming,” she says. “And through that programming, we’re making impactful changes in the lives of animals worldwide for their conservation and wellbeing.
“We’ve done some great things. I am only as good as my staff. We have the best staff – they are passionate about what we do here.”
A sense of optimism at Virginia Aquarium
Working in conservation helps her feel optimistic about the challenges facing the natural world. She comments:
“We are helping educate people about changes they can make. We are giving them opportunities to make changes in their daily lives, communities, choices, and the broader sense of conservation. The aquarium educates them and gives them tools to effect change rather than wallowing.
“Those tools and education are why people love visiting and working here. It’s a really exciting time for us to help make changes in the world that will benefit our local community and the broader world.”
Referring back to her earlier career, she says:
“I have always wanted to be part of making those bigger changes. I feel that’s what we’re able to do here every day with every visitor who comes to the door or anyone we can reach out to through any of our different channels.”
Showing people how to make small, impactful changes can prevent them from feeling overwhelmed by the magnitude of the challenge:
“Regarding conservation initiatives, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed and think, ‘It’s just one aluminium can. I’m going to throw it in the trash—it won’t make a difference.’ But you might change that mindset if you can show how thousands of those recycled cans make that precious aluminium resource.”
A community resource
She outlines the Virginia Aquarium’s genesis:
“The aquarium opened to the public in 1986. It was the concept of some great community visionaries who wanted to see an educational resource for our schools and community. What has grown from that original vision is the third most visited attraction in the Commonwealth of Virginia. We are a fabulous entertainment facility. But at the same time, we can share educational resources and conservation initiatives with those visitors.
“You don’t wake up in the morning and go, ‘Ooh, let’s go get educated.’ You wake up and say, ‘I want to spend fun times with my family and do something worthwhile.’ That’s why the aquarium has grown in leaps and bounds in terms of community and visitor engagement.
The mission is to connect people to the marine environment, inspiring a more sustainable future:
“We achieve that through exhibits, educational programs, and impactful conservation efforts.”
Conservation underpins everything the aquarium does:
“Every exhibit has that conservation message. In addition to that, of course, we have our educational programs, spanning from Toddler Tuesdays through to the boat trips. We go whale watching in the winter and dolphin watching in the summer. You’ll be out on the ocean seeing those animals, hearing their stories, and learning about the conservation initiatives concerning them.”
Conservation at Virginia Aquarium
The Virginia Aquarium’s biggest conservation initiatives are around sea turtles and marine mammals.
“We are responsible for any marine mammal or sea turtle that strands along the entire coast of Virginia,” she explains. “The total distance is around 7,000 miles, including the coastline and all the tributaries feeding from the ocean inland. It’s a lot of ground to cover.”
“Stranded animals include whales, dolphins, manatees, seals—and, of course, the variety of different sea turtles that are out there. Kemp’s ridley turtles, which grow up in the waters of the Chesapeake Bay, are the most critically endangered. So, they are an important focus for our conservation efforts.”
If the animals are alive, they are captured, rehabilitated, and released:
“If it’s deceased, it’s just as valuable to conservation because we can learn about the elements leading to the demise of these animals and assess how to address them to save future animals.”
Real change
Often, these investigations lead to meaningful change:
“Two years ago, we were really successful,” she comments. “We went and lobbied the Virginia General Assembly. After many years of research and many dead animals, we were able to show that balloons end up in the stomachs of turtles and dolphins, which eat them because they resemble jellyfish and then die. As a result of our lobbying, it is now illegal in the Commonwealth of Virginia to intentionally release a balloon.”
She adds:
“We’re not going to go after some poor child who loses a balloon. But we’ve seen an end to those mass balloon releases at celebrations that are so bad for the environment. We were able to educate people and change the law.”
The Aquarium supports the AZA’s Sea Turtle Saving Animals From Extinction SAFE Program, a collaboration among members of The Association of Zoos & Aquariums (AZA) with field-based partners aiming to conserve threatened species and protect the world’s turtles, with a focus on critically endangered Kemp’s ridleys and Eastern Pacific leatherbacks.
The team also supports various conservation programs and projects, including partnerships with local and international organisations.
Local and international conservation initiatives at Virginia Aquarium
Among local initiatives is the Water Quality Lab, approved by the Commonwealth of Virginia’s Department of Environmental Quality. This is a project in which Virginia Aquarium’s water quality lab can process water samples from community members interested in monitoring local waterways.
FrogWatch USA teaches volunteers to identify local frog and toad species by their calls during their breeding season and record observations for research support. Frogs and toads play a vital role in the ecosystem. They serve as predators and prey and live in aquatic and terrestrial habitats. This makes them critical indicators of environmental health, and monitoring their populations is essential.
OspreyWatch is a global monitoring project in which citizens and scientists collect data on breeding osprey. The Virginia Aquarium, along with local raptor expert Reese Lukei, works with the Center for Conservation Biology to monitor osprey nests and chicks throughout the breeding season on the Lynnhaven River. This is home to the largest population of breeding osprey.
Further afield, conservation efforts support Komodo Dragon populations in Indonesia, Zebra sharks, the Tomistoma (an endangered crocodilian species native to Southeast Asia), the Hawk Conservancy, and more.
Then, there is the SECORE coral restoration project. Virginia Aquarium is home to a variety of coral species. As a silver partner with SECORE (Sexual Coral Reproduction), the aquarium provides funding and field support for SECORE’s research and other projects, such as their annual workshop in Curaçao.
Animal ambassadors
“We have a map of the world showing the conservation initiatives that we work on throughout the world based on the species that we have here,” Whitbred-Spanoulis explains: “We have had staff go to Komodo Island to work with Komodo Dragons, for instance. Then there’s our Zebra shark, Mena. She is part of the Stegostoma tigrinum Augmentation and Recovery (StAR) Project.”
The StAR project, a collaboration between conservation groups and AZA facilities, including the Virginia Aquarium, aims to establish healthy, self-sustaining zebra shark populations in Indonesian waters through strong breeding and release programs.
“Mena’s eggs are being used to help repopulate the shark population,” she explains. “Most of our animal exhibits are connected, one way or another, to a conservation program. It’s exciting because when we share that with our guests, they get excited, too. They then follow us, learn more, and are inspired to help by making changes in their daily life, or by contributing to those conservation efforts some other place in the world.”
The aquarium’s animals are ambassadors:
“They give us that opportunity for someone to see them, engage with them, empathise with them, and realise that species is worthy of saving for future generations.”
That emotional connection with animals is, she contends, irreplaceable:
“Looking at aquariums and animals online is amazing, but it isn’t the same. You can’t beat seeing them in real life. Doing a behind-the-scenes program with one of our educators or meeting an animal ambassador that you can touch forges a real connection.”
South Building renovation
The Aquarium’s South Building has been extensively renovated. She explains:
“Our North Building has our sea turtles, sharks, seals, Tomistomas, etc. A few years ago, we decided to reimagine and add to our second building. That was mainly marsh animals and was getting a little old and tired. We added a whole new wing to that building.”
As part of the reimagining process, she explains:
“We did focus groups with our members and visitors, engaging them in what they would like to see. The result was that we expanded from just marsh animals. We still have them – our North American river otters, for example, are very charismatic. But we had a passionate donor who loved jellies. We said, ‘OK, we’ll add jellies, but the name of the building is going to change. It’s no longer marsh animals.’”
Animal superheroes
The South Building has an entire gallery devoted to jellyfish, including upside-down jellies, Pacific sea nettle jellies, a moon jellyfish touch pool, and the comic-book superhero-style Undersea Superpowers Gallery, which demonstrates how ‘superheroes of the sea’ use special adaptations to ward off predators, obtain food, seek a mate, and maintain a healthy balance in their ecosystem:
“To engage children with the thought that there are real comic-book heroes out there, we look at the animals and talk about their superpowers. If you’re a lionfish, you have venomous spines. A giant Pacific octopus is highly intelligent and a master at camouflage. Each exhibit has not only an animal but also an interactive environment where the kids can experience the superpower.”
“If you’re a mantis shrimp, you have a powerful claw that can break into the shells of your food. We have a fun interactive where the kids get to pretend they have a claw, using it to pound and break. Engaging children like this means they’re having fun but learning as well, which is key for us.”
Windows Into Animal Care at Virginia Aquarium
The South Building’s new wing affords a view into the aquarium’s veterinary surgery through the Windows Into Animal Care Gallery.
She comments:
“We have 5000 animals, and our veterinary care is essential to their wellbeing. We spend as much time, if not more, on our animals’ care as people do on that of their pet cats and dogs. So, we decided to share with the public how we care for those animals. Our veterinarian’s surgery room has a big glass window; you can watch her examining our animals. She wears a mic to share exactly what she’s doing. It’s an engaging area.”
There are also veterinary-themed interactives for children:
“Children can pretend they are veterinarians and do X-rays, MRI scans and ultrasounds. You put a stuffed animal in the machine and look at the scan on the screen. The cool thing is that they are the animals we have here. You X-ray the Komodo dragon and find that he has arthritis in his hip: one of our dragons has a bit of arthritis. Then you go through and see the Komodo dragons.”
Showcasing conservation
Another area of the expanded South Building houses Windows to Conservation:
“We do a lot of conservation projects, from poison dart frogs to one of my favourites: Cichlids. This fish species was extinct in the wild, but we have successfully been breeding and propagating for return to Lake Victoria and Africa.
“In the past, we would do these projects behind the scenes. Our guests never got to see the work that we were doing. Now, we have been able to create these Windows to Conservation, so you can look right in and see these animals as we raise them and explain their destination, whether that’s another accredited zoo or aquarium, as ambassadors, or whether they can be put back into the environment, which is, of course, our ultimate goal.”
It is an initiative that teaches people that ‘the wild’ isn’t always the best place for animals. She comments:
“There really aren’t any more wild places in the world. There are managed areas, so we have to be stewards of those areas, but they are slowly shrinking. What we strive to do, alongside trying to preserve those areas, is to ensure that the animals that live there not only thrive but are genetically diverse through our species survival programmes.
“Komodo dragons, for example, are one volcano eruption away from being extinct. Their habitats are on volcanic islands. The beauty of accredited zoos and aquariums is that we still have those animals to repopulate those habitats for future generations.”
Science-based play
The final piece of the expansion is outside. The Watershed is a science-based play area designed to teach young learners about the local watershed, the animals that live in it, the science of the water cycle, and how to protect the watershed ecosystems.
“The Watershed is huge. It tells the story of how a cloud rains water onto the mountains, which then flows through streams and tributaries to our beaches and oceans. It talks a lot about pollution, runoff, and what that looks like. Playing in the water engages them in a fun, interactive way, so they learn to care about the environment here in the Chesapeake Watershed and to realise that the rivers that flow from the mountains impact the water that we have here, too.”
In terms of the Aquarium’s growth strategy for the future, she says:
“We are excited about growing and expanding, but we also recognise that we need to proceed thoughtfully. A few years ago, we created a master plan addressing how we could ensure that the animals have appropriate exhibits that aren’t deteriorating. Some of the infrastructure goes back 40 years.
“We are working through how we start to implement those changes and thoughts as we grow and evolve over the next 10 to 15 years. We are also exploring how we can be most impactful around our mission and how we embrace the community in that process. It’s an ongoing conversation. We work with our nonprofit and our city partner on those conversations.”
See also: What makes a great aquarium?
Virginia Aquarium plans for the future
It is crucial, she suggests, to plan appropriately:
“My mother always said, ‘a failure to plan becomes your plan.’ Last year, we redid our overall strategic plan, identifying the pillars we wanted to work on in the next five to seven years, not just around exhibits but also how we engage the community that may not visit the aquarium: who are those individuals, and how do we engage them? What is the barrier to visiting us?
“It’s a holistic process, looking at that strategic plan around those areas and ensuring that we’re working on them all. We have great action plans moving forward and are thinking thoughtfully and strategically.”
In conclusion, she adds:
“We are always doing something exciting. I was just downstairs: we rotate the manager on duty, and I think our leadership team must take that role, engaging with our visitors instead of working in an office and having blinders on.
“A school group was coming through the doors – 30 third graders who were so excited. Their enthusiasm is contagious. Those kids are going to have a great day. They will have some animal ambassadors come out; they’re going to learn and be able to touch a snake. I’m excited for those kids today and for our other visitors. We’ll have a whale-watching trip this afternoon – a bunch of people out on our boat seeing the beautiful humpback whales.
“Every day, there is something new and exciting, something to get inspired about.”
