Meet Arizona's new aquarium: Wildlife World Zoo & Aquarium

December 21, 4:53 PMPhoenix Travel ExaminerJay Hammond

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Still from the slide show at www.WildlifeWorld.com

More water has come to the Valley and this time there are fish and aquatic animals in it. "It" is a 135,000 gallon sea that will eventually be populated with more than 400 species of animals. The doors to the Wildlife World Aquarium, the newest attraction to the Wildlife World Zoo, opened December 20, 2008.

"Bringing the ocean to the Sonoran Desert is quite a challenge. There have been several attempts by others to bring a world class aquarium in the Valley -- it is gratifying to play a part in making it finally happen." Assistant Zoo Director Mike Demlong

The multi-million dollar Aquarium is the largest expansion in the Wildlife World Zoo's nearly 25-year history. Made up of three major indoor exhibit buildings each having a unique animal theme: Diversity of Life in the Water, Wild and Wonderful, and Aquatic Predators. The largest building also houses a restaurant and bar featuring a 30-foot diameter shark tank and stingray feeding pool. Although it isn't very appealing to Arizona residents in the winter, the Flume Ride, will transport visitors around a 1,500-foot circuit past three monkey islands and through a 20-foot long acrylic tunnel surrounded by a South Pacific Reef teeming with tropical fish before cooling them off with a drop of nearly 3 stories and thorough soaking. The Flume Ride joins such other favorites as the Children's Petting Zoo, the African Safari Train, daily wildflife encounters, the Children's Carousel, the Australian Boat and the idearc media Sky-ride.

Surprisingly, the Aquarium was designed by the aquarium design team at Deutsch Architecture Group, a local architecture firm. The firm also designed the Camden New Jersey Aquarium Expansion and the Newport  Aquarium. The Wildlife World Aquarium is being built in five phases.

During the construction phase, fish arrived one and were introduced into the tanks one species at a time. In October, the Wildlife World Aquarium received the first major shipment of multiple species of fish including bowfin, paddlefish, longnose gar and spotted gar. A shipment of flamingos also arrived from Busch Gardens.

"By opening we anticipat more than 150 new species will be added to the nearly 400 species already in our zoo and aquarium collection. The new animals will be spread over some indoor and oudorr exhibits," said Zoo Director, Mickey Ollson.

The completed Aquarium will be home to such unusual species as seahorses, stingrays, and Giant Pacific Octopus along with other aquatic mammals, repitles, fish and birds. The largest known species of fresh-water fish, the Arapaima, will also be on exhibit.

The Wildlife World Aquarium will be unlike any other. We've taken the best features from aquariums across the U.S. and tried to make them better," explains Aquarium Project Manage Jeff Faucett, who also helped launch Moody Gardens in Galveston, TX and the Oklahoma State Aquarium in Tulsa, OK.

The Wildlife World Zoo is among the few nationally accredited, privately-owned zoological parks in the U.S. In 2004, the zoo was inducted into the World Association of Zoos and Aqauriums (WAZA). With more than 2,600 individual animals, the Wildlife World Zoo and Aquarium is home to Arizona's largest collection of exotic animals representing nearly 600 exotic and endangered species. Nearly 400,000 people, 75,000 of them students, experience the park annually. The Wildlife world Zoo and Aquarium rely primarily on gate attendance and retail sales to generate operating and capital budgets. They receive no public tax funds, grants or financial donations.

"Over the last decade, many communities have opened aquariums with substantial fanfare and public support only to see these projects succumb in subsequent years to waning attendance and crushing debt," Ollson said. "We have a design, a budget, and a plan in place to avoid repeating history here."

Look forward to significant new animal attractions to come online over the next several years. Among the aquarium additions already in the planning stages are attractions featuring sea lions and otters.