The Utica Zoo has just placed hundreds more creatures on exhibit.
But the new residents take up far less space than many longer-term residents like the African lions or the white-handed gibbons.
The newcomers all live in two large, saltwater aquariums in the zoo’s former auditorium building. The Greater Utica Chamber of Commerce hosted a ribbon cutting on Wednesday June 10 to open the new Bull Reef exhibit.
“We are entering uncharted territories by going under the sea,” the zoo’s Executive Director Andria Heath said.
The two, 1,000-gallon tanks on exhibit for the public hold more than 300 varieties of coral, both soft and hard, as well as anemones, hermit crabs, snails, shrimp and fish. Look for clown fish hiding among the anemones, a few kinds of tangs, damsel fishes, blennies, gobies and the one and only Bowser, a chainlink Moray eel, whose winding, energetic swimming draws the eye.
And more fish will be added over time, giving visitors even more to look at in the future.
As Heath told the crowd, “The longer you stare, the more you will see.”
Conservation education
Although ocean life may be a new realm for zoo staff, the coral in the exhibit has one thing in common with a number of the zoo’s other residents — it is endangered. So Bull Reef will give zoo staff a new dimension for the work they already do on conservation education, officials said.
A video screen in the exhibit room displays a slideshow of factoids on coral reefs, noting, for example, that coral reefs cover less than 0.1% of the earth’s surface, but house 25% of its life. A small tank will even let the Utica Zoomobile take coral and an anemone along on its educational visits.
“This is an exciting day. The Utica Zoo is a unique experience,” Utica Mayor Mike Galime said. “We’ve all grown up with it, but every single time we come here, we see something new.”
But he never expected the next new thing to be an aquarium of ocean life, he admitted.
Local connections
All the species living in Bull Reef hail from the Indian and Pacific oceans. But everyone living in the tanks hails from someplace far closer to the zoo, namely, Schuyler. They all came from Bull Reef Aquaculture Farm, a wholesale aquaculture business selling coral raised in captivity.
Owner Ronny Bull, who holds a Ph.D. in computer science, worked with the zoo to set up the exhibit and the automated systems that maintain it. And the Bull Family Fund at the Community Foundation of Oneida and Herkimer Counties, started by his parents, gave a donation that made the exhibit possible.
Bull’s son Silas, 11, made his own contribution to the project. He donated Bowser who’s been Silas’ pet since Silas was about five years old.
And Todd Usmail, of the family-owned Usmail Electric in Yorkville, donated the exhibit’s electrical infrastructure and the work to install it. Usmail, an enthusiastic scuba diver, also owns Seas the Day Scuba in New York Mills and trains other scuba divers.
A state grant through the Empire State Development Regional Council Capital Funds Program paid for the portions of the exhibit the public can see.
The infrastructure for the tanks fills another room, off limits to the public behind the tanks.
Aeris McGill, 7, skipped part of her school day, with her teacher’s permission, to attend the ribbon cutting and see the new exhibit with her mom Kathleen, the zoo’s business operations coordinator. She was already wearing one of the gift shop’s new Utica Zoo T-shirts decorated with a coral reef and fish.
It was, she said, the first time she’d ever seen such a large aquarium.
“It is good,” she declared. “My favorite fish is Bowser. He looks cool.”
This article originally appeared on Observer-Dispatch: Wave to the Utica Zoo’s newest exhibit: two coral reef habitats
Reporting by Amy Neff Roth, Utica Observer Dispatch / Observer-Dispatch
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Amy Neff Roth, Utica Observer Dispatch | USA TODAY Network
