Sometimes it takes a
bottom dweller to know what’s up in the neighborhood. That’s why Lake
Superior Magazine caught - and later released - the Sturgeon General,
mascot of the soon-to-open Great Lakes Aquarium at Lake Superior Center.
Just weeks away from the grand opening of what will be the country’s largest
center devoted to fresh-water habitats, the “SG” and all of the almost
50 two-legged staff members at the aquarium are busily preparing the $33
million site not far from the Aerial Lift Bridge in Duluth, Minnesota.
The Sturgeon General took time to talk about where all of those fish and
other live “exhibits” came from …
CHUCK KOOSMANN
Before the waters came the concrete in the Isle Royale exhibit, a three-tank
water wonder that rises 24 feet above the floor (below).
Lake Superior Magazine: How many kinds of fish will live and work
in the aquarium?
Sturgeon General: We have a fin-tastic selection representing all
of Lake Superior’s present, and past, aquatic inhabitants - lake herring,
burbot (better known as eelpout or “lawyers”), pink salmon, yellow perch,
blue gill sunfish, northern pike, slimy sculpin, deep water sculpin, walleye,
sturgeon, paddlefish, alewives, pigmy whitefish, a variety of minnow species
and, of course, the gamut of trout - lake trout, brook trout, rainbow trout,
the fatty lake trout called siscowit … just to name a few of the fish and
not to mention the other aquatic and near aquatic types.
LSM: That’s quite a few to be “a few.”
SG: We’ll have 80 species in all, plus some shoreline birds and
frogs - gray tree frogs, spring peepers, leopard frogs - and other amphibians
and reptiles and otters and crickets and …
LSM: Crickets? Why crickets?
SG: Ah … maybe you don’t want to know. Let’s just say they get frequent
lunch invitations from the other staff members …
LSM: ‘Nuf said. I’m supposing I don’t want to know about the minnows
either.
SG: They will be exhibits, for the most part.
LSM: Definitely a better job in the aquarium food chain.
SG: It’s good work if you can get it.
LSM: Just how did these thousands of fish come to their, er, jobs
here?
SG: Sometimes it’s a matter of being in the right place at the right
time. Like the school of herring from Milwaukee. Those little fingerlings
were the right age to be shipped up north. Other times it takes a bit of
an audition. Take the eelpout, or as they prefer, “burbot.” The two-legged
aquarium staff members drove all the way to Walker, Minnesota, and did
on-the-spot auditions as these fish were hooked during an annual eelpout
ice-fishing festival. The big challenge comes after transportation in the
150-gallon tank in the van. Then we have to acclimate them from their comfortable
lake water temperature of 34 to 35 degrees Fahrenheit to a sweltering 50
to 55 degrees in the permanent tanks. Other fish were recruited by the
aquarium staff from the nets of research and commercial fishing vessels.
Some fish have agents of sorts. Agencies can fulfill aquarium requests
for certain fish types.
LAKE SUPERIOR MAGAZINE
A complicated system of pumps, filters and piping keeps the waters
of the Great Lakes Aquarium exhibits flowing and fresh.
SG: You said it. And that’s for more than just fish gathering. We’ve
had help from national, state and local agencies, from a wide range of
area businesses and private individuals to create the education program,
build the center and its 30 interactive exhibits. Some exhibits feature
aquatic roles that are extremely hard to fill. Jay Walker, aquarium curator
of animal care … and a personal friend of mine, I might add … says that
alewives, pigmy whitefish and deep water sculpin are particularly hard
to find because no other aquariums exhibit them. “We’ll have to be fairly
creative in getting these species,” Jay says. We will be ground-breaking,
or maybe water-parting, in developing new capture, feeding and upkeep methods.
Of course, none of the fish or birds or animals can be recruited without
the aquarium first acquiring proper permits and that’s a longtime task
in itself.
LSM: Do you feel confident about the aquarium’s provisions for its
underwater staff?
SG: As Director David Lonsdale (another personal friend) always
says: “An aquarium probably is one of the most complex places of work.”
Just like in a hospital, the aquarium has backup generators to keep the
pumps and filters working, it has staff on duty around the clock and employs
people who specialize in bird and animal husbandry, fish management, microbiologists,
chemists, veterinarians PLUS the bookkeepers, grant writers, visitor relations,
educators, mechanical plant engineers, food service personnel PLUS volunteers
PLUS …
LSM: Sounds like you’re naming another “few.” Evidently there are
many species of human jobs within an aquarium of this sort.
SG: Crucial roles deal with me and my wildlife co-workers. There
are many stresses on the new “hires.” Epidemics can flourish, but aquarium
staff help by reducing the energy needed for other fish functions, like
adding salt to reduce the need for body functions or adding oxygen to ease
breathing. Recruits don’t eat for two days before and one day after arrival.
That reduces the energy needed to eat or digest. New fish even need to
relearn how to eat, non-swimming pellets instead of the usual “moveable”
feasts, for instance. The aquarium staff has done a great job keeping us
fish comfortable, even when we were living in a former automobile sales
building. There we lived in tanks, but also in swimming pools that warned
us “No Diving, Shallow Water.” Most of us fish can’t read, but we didn’t
dive anyway. That’s a dolphin thing. Still, it’s nice to move into our
mega-gallon tanks at the actual aquarium with all of the habitat attributes
of our usual lakescapes. In both sites, the staff installed biological
filter systems, which means our filtration is a living ecosystem of bacteria.
As my friend David said, aquariums are very complicated.
LSM: So it seems. And intriguing, too.
SG: We’ve captured a little bit of Lake Superior in a bottle. I
can’t think of anything more fascinating … and not just because I can hang
out in those waters up to 100 years. The tales I could tell … and at the
aquarium, I will.
LSM: Thank you, Sturgeon General, for surfacing long enough to talk
about the new Great Lakes Aquarium. We’ll go even deeper into the
entire operation in a special section in our next issue.
The aquarium opens in July on the Duluth waterfront. For information, contact
Great Lakes Aquarium at Lake Superior Center, www.glaquarium.org/
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