General history & ethics

First public aquariums

Publicly exhibited aquariums were catalyzed by fisheries exhibitions in the late 1800s. Interest in fisheries management rose in the US after Spencer Baird, assistant secretary of the Smithsonian, investigated decreases in fish stocks reported by fishermen in the Northeast. The US Fish Commission was then founded in 1871. Temporary public aquarium exhibits were created for fisheries shows in 1880, some of which traveled from Berlin to Edinburgh to London by 1883. Their popularity resulted in more at the Chicago World's Fair (1893) and the St. Louis World's Fair (1904).

The National Aquarium in D.C. started in 1873 as part of the Fish Commission in MA. (It moved to D.C. in 1878 and closed in 2013.) Following that, in 1885, Baird's work resulted in the creation of the first permanent public aquarium that still exists in its original facility, the Woods Hole Science Aquarium on Cape Cod, MA. The small public aquarium displays over 100 native species and its mission is "education, conservation, and research in support of NOAA Fisheries’ role in stewardship of the nation’s living marine resources." It's run by NOAA's Northeast Fisheries Science Center.

At the St. Louis World's Fair, Pennsylvania stocked 35 tanks of live fish—which proved difficult—that were popular enough to motivate the city of Philadelphia to create a permanent aquarium. It was not funded until state fisheries partnered with the aquarium to supply fish fry for rearing, public display, and then eventually release. Philadelphia Aquarium opened in Fairmount Park in 1911 and survived until 1962. Its concept was to help "the public become better acquainted with the habitat, breeding, and activities of freshwater and saltwater fish, especially those native to Pennsylvania."

Not all US public aquariums began with close ties to fisheries work; some were created in conjunction with research institutions. Other early public aquariums besides Woods Hole that still exist include the New York Aquarium (1896, WCS), Birch Aquarium (1903, Scripps), Waikiki Aquarium (1904), Belle Island Aquarium (1904–2005, 2012), Steinhart Aquarium (1923, CAS), and Shedd Aquarium (1930).

Founding, mission, status

I find the founding of US public aquariums interesting, and worth looking at individually. It seems that public education was a primary goal in the founding of the Woods Hole Science Aquarium and Philadelphia Aquarium, and that's pretty impressive to me for that time period. Many other US aquariums that have opened since then had similar goals to showcase local species and biodiversity.

Others may begin with an interest in entertainment, as an attraction. I am not an authority on whether or not such a public aquarium is ethically good, but I think that such a description can easily oversimplify various aspects of an organization's work.

Before thinking about their work specifically, what is the status of the organization? Are they a registered 501(c) nonprofit if in the US? (Or the equivalent if outside the US.) Sure, some people at large nonprofits make a good amount of money, but I would bet money (that I don't have) on the vast majority of the employees not making a significant amount of money. (Look up your favorite organizations on charitynavigator.org for an overview and on propublica.org for detailed financial forms.)

• Programs aiming to educate people, which are not revenue based
• Endeavor to conduct science and publishing scientific research, or participate
• If not publishing, maybe traveling and participating in field work (probably through messaging: website, social media, maybe news articles)
• Involvement in breeding programs, or rehabilitation and release efforts
• Influence of local or national government regarding environmental issues
• This is something that I personally feel is big, because our portrayal of individual consumerism as a significant way to curtail climate change (and help alleviate many other global issues) is unrealistic
• Most organizations besides the largest ones likely do not make this a priority, but maybe they still participate without staff dedicated solely to this
• Environmental footprint
  

Something that may not come to mind immediately when thinking about public aquariums: native plants! Many are involved in local environmental efforts, like this small fraction of Oregon Coast Aquarium's restored grounds, which are designated as a Wildlife Habitat by the National Wildlife Federation.

Animal-related topics

Alright, but… what about keeping animals?

One fish, two fish… we eat fish?

The foundation of a public aquarium is (hopefully, to me) its fish and invertebrate exhibits. A frame of reference that I was given in formal aquarium science education was that we typically eat the animals that we display. (Although, ironically, I do not… and this is more likely to surprise my colleagues than everyone else, who assume I love all fishes dearly.)

No, the fact that humans eat these species does not negate our obligation to go beyond just meeting an animal's needs, providing exceptional care. However, unfounded concern about animals being cared for in zoological facilities misses the mark when there are many, many existing systems of animal welfare negligence or purposeful harm.

As one example, at a previous facility I had many conversations with visitors where they approached me questioning our ability to ethically keep large species of sharks in a 500,000-gallon exhibit. In discussing husbandry techniques, attempting to reassure them that we know what we're doing and that the sharks do very well, I also liked to point out the signage that discussed how 70 million or so sharks are killed every year by commercial fisheries and we had… less than 10, that live for a long time. This might be a declining problem due to increasing prevalence of regulations that force sustainable shark fishing, but this is to point out that shark populations in all public aquariums in the world are negligible. Maybe there are some individuals of endangered species which might actually impact wild populations, but not the two species we were discussing. The aquarium hobby on the other hand? Not necessarily negligible.

Anthropomorphization & expertise

Yep, that's a bit of a mouthful. When we assign human qualities to non-human animals, that's anthropomorphizing. Caring for an animal from a human perspective can bring some good, but for the most part when we're talking about fishes and invertebrates, it's bad. One of the most glaring examples is the likelihood that every fish cared for by humans is probably overfed, to the point that it sometimes negatively affects their health. Ectotherms ("cold-blooded" animals) typically have much lower energy requirements than us, as we use a good amount of ours to regulate our internal body temperature.

Less generally, every species is different. Ask anyone who has ever cared for an octopus how many times they've fielded questions about the animal's tank size—it's small for a reason! (Ok, I haven't actually counted, but it's very many.) Most octopuses and many other species are solitary, and because we're social animals, we assume animals that are by themselves aren't in an ideal situation. (Note that I didn't describe them as "not happy" as that'd be… anthropomorphizing!) In summary, it's easy without species-specific knowledge to be unaware of why an animal is being cared for the way that it appears to be.

Something that I believe is closely tied to anthropomorphization is the eagerness to assume animal work does not require very specific expertise, or even flat out rejection that such expertise exists. We see this in broad public criticism of zoological institutions and of other animal-related topics, particularly coming from an "animal rights" perspective. Modern zoological facilities subscribe to a science-based effort to continuously improve the wellbeing of animals they care for, called animal welfare, which you'll likely see mentioned alongside various topics on this site. I also try to give examples of animal expertise where I can, but hopefully that just comes across in the deluge of information!