Coming up, Jonathan goes diving a mile above sea level at the best dive site in Denver,
Colorado—the Downtown Aquarium!
Welcome to Jonathan Bird’s Blue World!
I’m fortunate to have visited some of the best dive sites on Earth.
Places like Indonesia, the Galapagos, the Caribbean, and even Antarctica.
Today I’m adding another special place to that list.
Denver, Colorado.
Record scratch.
No seriously!
Zach of all Trades and I are visiting the incredible Downtown Aquarium in Denver to
see their super cool exhibits.
Denver is pretty far from the nearest ocean, but I’m pretty sure we are going to have
some amazing dives today.
I meet up with Wendie Murray, the Dive Operations Manager at the aquarium.
Hello…
Hey Wendie!
Welcome to the Denver Downtown Aquarium Thanks for having me!
5,000 feet high sharks!
Yeah, almost 6,000!
Is it really?
Nice wow awesome!
Well let’s go check it out.
Ready to take a tour?
Yes!
Alright, let’s go.
We start our day with a tour of the aquarium and we have the place to ourselves because
they are not open to the public for another two hours.
Our journey begins in the North America exhibit where we meet an Alligator Snapping turtle.
So we do have an Alligator Snapping Turtle.
We’re guessing he’s about 96.
At 96 years old, he is one of the oldest known Snapping turtles.
And we have perfect timing, as they are about to feed him.
Oh he sees it now!
He sees it now!
He’s so cool, I love him!
He gets his shell scratched occasionally just to get some of that algae off.
He’s got buoyancy issues, he needs a BC.
There he goes.
And the weird thing is, they haven’t named him.
They have a number of exhibits containing freshwater fish of North America like trout,
salmon, and even sturgeon.
And a parrot.
This is Molly.
Hi Molly!
She is very verbal.
Molly is very verbal.
Molly’s daily exercise regimen involves climbing a rope.
Alright so here she goes!
She is going to climb that rope up to Ryan our mammals curator.
Woo look at that So again this is just utilizing her muscles
and conditioning.
Yay!
Soon we arrive at the rainforest exhibit where they have lots of exotic tropical fish, like
the Archerfish.
So we have Archerfish.
Have you seen an archerfish?
Oh!
No!
So Laurie is going to show you what to do and you are going to do it after
So they are going to spit.
What the heck?
Oh wow!
The archerfish has learned how to catch food by shooting a jet of water at bugs above the
surface.
They have incredible aim.
The aquarium staff keep them sharp by letting them shoot crickets out of their hands.
That’s amazing they have really good aim!
We pass some other great exhibits but I’m looking for something big enough to swim in!
Touch pool!
You can’t swim in this one.
But you can touch.
Hey Guys what’s up?
Hello hello you are so squishy She is going to feed the Southerns if you
want to…
Let’s check it out.
Wow the Southerns get some pretty big food.
That’s like half a Mackeral.
Do you want to feed the…
Sure?
In between your fingers…
So you hold them in your knuckles…alright….
This touch tank exhibit allows people to get up close and personal with cow-nosed rays
and southern stingrays.
Good grief wow!
OK!
Just like that.
Alright so we’re just going to go like this a little bit of shrimp.
Alright dinner is served!
Here ya go…there ya go!
You got it!
Okay Here we go, you got it!
Okay you almost got my watch too!
Now we are working our way into the ocean exhibits.
And finally the largest exhibit in the aquarium, the shipwreck exhibit, which simulates looking
out at a coral reef from a shipwreck.
So our final large exhibit!
Wow!
This is the largest one that we have and it is our shipwreck exhibit!
It’s filled with huge fish, sharks and one of my favorite creatures:
Look at the Sawfish!
They’re so big!
Sawfish are so rare, that I’ve never seen one in the wild.
Unfortunately, Wendie says only the staff usually gets to dive in this exhibit.
So no sawfish for me.
Fortunately, we can dive in the Under The Sea exhibit, so we head upstairs and go behind
the scenes to gear up.
These exhibits are tropical fish, so the water is warm.
When we enter the exhibit, I can’t believe how many fish there are!
Wendie takes us on a tour, and now that the aquarium is open for the day, we have an audience.
A green moray is used to the cameras and doesn’t mind my attention at all.
A nurse shark poses for a few minutes.
Nearby another animal I’ve never seen in the wild: a guitarfish, which is either an
elongated stingray or a flattened shark, depending on your point of view.
They are kind of halfway between sharks and stingrays.
And they don’t mind hanging out with the stingrays.
I make my way to the other side of the exhibit and find two different species of morays hanging
out behind a sign.
Nearby, a Leopard Whipray chills out.
This is a somewhat uncommon species of stingray known for it’s long whip-like tail.
And of course it has a leopard skin pattern!
This male is obviously used to people because he doesn’t mind me at all.
I can go right in for a eyeball closeup!
That was an amazing dive with so many cool things to see, I loved it.
After the dive Wendie takes us over to the top of the Shipwreck Exhibit, which is much
larger.
A Sandbar shark buzzes right by the swim entry point.
And that’s when she tells us that she got permission for us to go in, so we can see
the Sawfish.
This exhibit has a sneaky entry corridor that allows the staff to enter without disturbing
the marine life.
We sneak around and find a nice spot to settle down and watch the action.
A Sand Tiger shark comes over to investigate.
And right in front of me, a huge Sawfish.
Sawfish are essentially rays.
Their gills reside underneath their head just like a stingray.
But they are long and skinny like a shark.
So they’re actually a lot like a Guitarfish but their distinguishing feature is the long
rostrum with teeth arranged in a saw pattern.
The Sawfish swings its saw back and forth in the sand to catch fish.
It’s a super effective hunting technique.
We follow Wendie around the back of the exhibit to the other side.
Over here we have a good view of the whole place.
A curious Napoleon wrasse comes over for a look.
The Sand Tiger sharks are curious too.
Lots of aquariums have Sand Tigers because they are the perfect shark.
They look mean and toothy, but they are actually very mellow and they won’t eat the other
fish in the exhibit as long as they’re kept well fed.
The Zebra shark gets its name because in the juvenile phase it has stripes.
But as the shark gets older, the stripes turn into spots.
The sawfish normally lay on the bottom, but every once in a while they like to swim around
for a look.
Soon it’s time to leave, so Wendie takes us back to the entrance.
The Downtown Aquarium in Denver is truly one of my favorite aquariums in the world.
They have such a diverse collection of incredible aquatic life to see.
And it’s the best ocean dive in the world at more than 5,000 feet above sea level.
Denver might be almost 1,000 miles from the ocean, but that doesn’t mean you can’t
get a great glimpse into life in the Blue World.
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