Julie Packard was part of the team that created the Monterey Bay Aquarium in Monterey, California in the early 1980s. She has served as the aquarium’s executive director since it opened to the public for the first time in 1984.
Monterey Bay was the first major public aquarium in the US that was dedicated to interpreting the marine life of a single region. Since then, it has evolved into an institution that explores the region in a global context, and under Packard’s leadership, it has grown into one of the nation’s leading ocean conservation organisations.
Monterey Bay was also the first aquarium to exhibit a living kelp forest. Other milestones include being the first institution to successfully care for and display a great white shark, and its team also made breakthroughs in jellyfish husbandry. Its research and conservation programmes focus on a range of species, including sea otters and tunas. In 1991, it began publishing Seafood Watch, a sustainable seafood advisory list.
Packard is a marine algae zoologist by profession and says that her interest in conservation began at an early age. This was in part inspired by her childhood in California, spending time outdoors and growing up in a family that valued science.
She believes that aquariums have a pivotal role to play in safeguarding the future of the world’s oceans. Speaking to blooloop in 2016, she said: “I think it’s easy for people to feel overwhelmed by the scale of the environmental crisis. But, everyone can have a part in driving change – and tangible change is happening.
“The aquarium has a major commitment to communicate about ocean conservation. But also to do as much as we can to motivate people to think. To think about their own lives and the action they can take. We can highlight the ocean-friendly choices they can make.”