This Sunday, 27 September, is World Tourism Day. And according to the TripAdvisor Traveler’s Choice awards, we are among the 20 best aquariums in the world.
Each year, approximately 400 000 people make their way through the doors of the Two Oceans Aquarium. Many of them are from overseas, visiting our amazing country. Some are from around the block and call us their neighbours. Some visitors come to see what South Africa has to offer in terms of marine heritage, and some visit to have a close-up experience with our sharks through scuba diving, or with our rockhopper penguins through our Penguin Encounters. Each visitor experiences the Aquarium in a unique way.
Few however, get to see what we do behind the scenes. Here are a couple of things we do that you might not know about:
- We rehabilitate stranded sea turtles and then, once healthy, release them back into the ocean.
- We assist scientists with research. In the case of Dr Alison Kock, we help with sevengill shark research.
- We assist animals in distress, like when we moved, tagged and released a sevengill shark that was found in a tidal pool in Gordon’s Bay or when two sunfish were trapped in the dry dock. Some of our staff members cut the nooses off the seals in the harbor.
- We donate to worthy causes, like the African Penguin and Seabird Sanctuary and the leervis research project.
- We also donate and sponsor a number of visits by charity organisations, underprivileged schools and pensioner groups.
- Our education department sees approximately 50 000 school children each year. We also run free, highly educational courses for school children of all ages.
- We support environmental days and causes like International Coastal Cleanup Day, International African Penguin Awareness Day, the Penguin Promises Waddle for a Week, Water Week and International Plastic Bag Free Day.
- We support local entrepreneurs like Mzu Lembeni.
- We have six environmental campaigns. Each is aimed at changing every day behavior. You can have a positive effect on the environment by supporting these campaigns.
- We are Platinum members of the Heritage Environmental Rating Programme. This means that we strive to reduce our environmental impact and footprint through various initiatives.
- We host a number of job shadow student and interns every year.
To all our visitors – thank you, and to those who are thinking about visiting – we can’t wait to see you!
