By: Katy Cassetta/Staffwriter
Located not far from Salve Regina University is the Save the Bay Aquarium and Exploration Center, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to protect and improve Narraganset Bay. The aquarium’s purpose is not just entertainment but education. Its goal is to inform people about the different species in the Bay through the exhibits there.
The exhibits are rotated as animals are brought into the aquarium or released back into the wild, and the newest exhibit is a blue lobster of which there are only one in a million. Among the different exhibits are also three touch tanks. One includes urchins, spider crabs and starfish. The second has skates and horseshoe crabs. The third and final tank has chain dogfish sharks that were raised in the aquarium.
All the animals are species that can be found in Narragansett Bay, and most of them are caught by fishermen, science facilities, or the staff at Save the Bay themselves. Some of the sharks and skates, however, are not caught but instead raised in the aquarium having been hatched from eggs laid by the older female sharks and skates there. After six months to two years, depending on the individual, the sharks and skates are released into the wild. This is done both so that they can help repopulate in the wild and so that they do not spend the rest of their lives in captivity.
Save The Bay’s newest inhabitant is a rare, one-in-a-million blue lobster.
Save the Bay does not want to keep these animals in a tank their whole lives, and so they wait until the sharks and skates are ready to release them. In fact, most of the animals stay at the aquarium for a year on average before being released back into the wild.
Not all the animals can be released, however. Some, like the diamondback terrapin, a species of turtle, are endangered. Save the Bay has permission to keep them to educate people about endangered species and protect this species. They have two diamondback terrapins, a female and male, and the male was born without the top part of his beak. Another permanent resident is Bowser, a turtle with six toes instead of the usual five.
The aquarium also keeps some invasive species to prevent them from doing harm in the wild and to educate people about the dangers of invasive species. Save the Bay has an exhibit of green crabs which are a huge problem in Narragansett Bay, and this exhibit brings people’s attention to this problem and prevents the green crabs here at the aquarium from adding to the problem.
Along with protecting endangered species and preventing invasive species from doing harm, the aquarium rescues what are called gulf stream orphans. These are animals washed in from tropical areas by the gulf stream who cannot survive the winters up here due to the cold.
Save the Bay is located not far from Salve Regina, the address being Easton’s Beach 175 Memorial Blvd. Admission is only $8.00 and the hours from Labor Day to Memorial Day are Friday to Sunday 10 a.m.-4 p.m. It is worth a visit both to see the animals there and to support the aquarium in their mission.
Website: https://www.savebay.org/aquarium
