SEAWORLD ORLANDO · AN APPRECIATION BY ROB URBAN
A world worth
looking into.
There is extraordinary work happening at the scale of an aquarium window.
Three sawfish pups.
A handful of shark eggs.
A different view of a familiar animal.
In May 2023, an ultrasound gave SeaWorld Orlando’s aquarists and veterinary team something extraordinary to prepare for. A smalltooth sawfish was pregnant.
She was moved to the Aquarium Health Center for closer observation. On July 11, she gave birth to three pups. Each was about two feet long. The park announced the births that October.
I keep coming back to the interval between the discovery and the announcement. There were people preparing, watching and attending to an animal whose reproduction was still capable of teaching them something rare. A visitor could be having the loudest, fastest afternoon of their vacation while that patient work continued elsewhere in the park.
That coexistence is part of what interests me about SeaWorld Orlando. The skyline makes an immediate promise. The aquariums reward a different kind of curiosity, including an interest in the people who make it possible to look into the water and see so much.
Three new lives.
JULY 11, 2023
The October 2023 account described two female pups and one male. It reported that this was only the second successful smalltooth sawfish birth in an aquarium worldwide. The animals were receiving care behind the scenes as they grew.
There is a wonderful detail in that account: the teeth along a newborn’s saw are covered by a protective material that later disappears. Even the silhouette asks a question. How does an animal shaped like that come into the world?
Understanding a detail like this changes what we are looking at. An unfamiliar outline becomes a living creature with a beginning, a body that develops, and needs that somebody is learning to meet.
I admire the concentration such work asks of people. A successful birth is an event. Raising the young creates another set of responsibilities, observations and questions. The news has a date; the work continues beyond it.
These three births belong to a specific account from 2023. Their value does not depend on turning them into a claim that the species’ problems have been solved. They give us something real to appreciate: a rare opportunity to learn, and a team present to make use of it.
Before the teeth, an egg.
A much smaller animal appears in a SeaWorld story from February 2018. Five white-spotted bamboo shark eggs were on display at Shark Encounter. They were part of a larger group laid by sharks living at the park.
Veterinarian and reproductive specialist Gisele Montano and aquarium manager Jim Kinsler explained what the eggs could mean. The young sharks might eventually move to other aquariums. Kinsler connected that cooperation with the possibility of reducing demand for animals collected from wild populations.
I like how specific the story is. It concerns eggs, young animals, suitable homes and people speaking to colleagues at other institutions. It makes a large idea small enough to understand without making the work seem small.
There is another pleasure in the detail. A shark is an animal many of us learned to recognize through its teeth. An egg invites an entirely different first question. What is happening in there?
That question can give a familiar animal a new place in someone’s imagination. A person who came prepared to be impressed by size might find themselves interested in a beginning.
A view
of your own.
What changes when someone makes room for you to look?
The Manta Aquarium makes space for a visitor who wants to keep looking. SeaWorld describes ten aquariums with rays, bonnethead sharks, sea dragons and other marine life. A pop-up viewing feature gives younger guests a view surrounded by the aquarium.
I appreciate the generosity of that change in viewpoint. A child is not always looking from the best height in a public space. Here, getting into position is part of the discovery. The setting offers them a view of their own.
Adults get to reconsider their position too. We usually look at animals from wherever the path happens to put us. A thoughtfully placed window can make movement newly legible: how a body turns, where a fin sits, how much of an animal’s shape we miss from one angle.
The Manta roller coaster offers its own interpretation of movement, carrying riders in a flying position inspired by a ray. I enjoy the imagination in that pairing. Someone has looked at an animal moving through water and wondered how a human might feel even a suggestion of that freedom.
The aquarium remains an experience for people who do not want to ride. That matters. Curiosity has no height requirement, even when a coaster does. A family can share an interest without every person needing to share the same appetite for a head-first drop.
Recognition is the beginning.
At Shark Encounter, the underwater viewing tunnel offers another perspective. People enter a space in which the animals can move above and around the view. The familiar arrangement of visitor and display shifts.
I am interested in what that does to our confidence. A creature we could identify instantly in a photograph may become harder to reduce to a single image once we watch it move. It keeps having a life while we are deciding what to notice.
A patient look lets the first impression become more detailed. The animal has a particular shape, a particular way of passing through the water. We can follow the movement instead of racing to attach a label.
For a writer, that is a useful reminder too. Names help us find a subject. Attention helps us understand it. The best detail is often the one that requires us to stay a little longer than we planned.
That is the kind of invitation I value in an aquarium: a reason to remain interested after recognition. You know it is a shark. Now you have time to see something about it.
Stay curious about the people, too.
When I think about the SeaWorld stories that deserve telling, I think of an aquarist recognizing a change, a veterinarian studying an image, and a child finding a window at the right height.
Those are different kinds of expertise and discovery. They can meet in the same place.
The people caring for the animals know much more than can fit on a sign. A visitor brings questions the sign may never have anticipated. Somewhere in that exchange, a name can become an interest. An interest can become something a person continues reading about at home.
I admire SeaWorld Orlando for making these particular encounters and this skilled work part of a place people choose for pleasure. There is room in a holiday for exhilaration, for looking closely, and for coming away with a question that feels worth pursuing.
The sawfish account began with somebody looking carefully enough to recognize what was happening. It seems a good spirit in which to visit.
My Florida stories follow the details that make places worth knowing. If there is a story in your own work that deserves this kind of attention, I would be glad to hear about it.
Rob Urban
A few useful distinctions.
Can I visit Manta Aquarium without riding the coaster?
Yes. SeaWorld describes Manta Aquarium as a walk-through animal experience for visitors who are not coaster enthusiasts. The aquarium and the Manta ride are distinct experiences.
Is Shark Encounter the same as the Sharks Up-Close Tour?
No. Shark Encounter is the walk-through aquarium experience. SeaWorld separately offers an Up-Close Tour with a different view and animal-care information. Check the current tour listing for its price, admission requirements and availability.
Are the sawfish births and shark eggs described here current announcements?
No. The sawfish pups were born in July 2023 and announced that October. The bamboo shark egg account was published in February 2018. These are dated examples of the work, not promises of what will be on display during your visit.