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An Apollonaut travel guide
The place behind the detail.
A volunteer science centre, a former water plant and a dolphin called Winter offer several ways into the story of Clearwater Marine Aquarium.
On this page
A volunteer project
Volunteers founded the Clearwater Marine Science Center in 1972. In 1978 the city gave it a disused water treatment plant on the bay, and the building’s big holding pools were adapted for rescued dolphins and sea turtles.
The centre opened its first exhibit room in 1981 and took the name Clearwater Marine Aquarium in the 1990s.
Winter and Hope
Winter, rescued in 2005 after losing her tail to a crab trap’s ropes, learned to swim with a prosthetic tail and brought the aquarium worldwide attention. Her story became the 2011 film Dolphin Tale.
Hope, rescued as an orphaned calf in 2010, starred in Dolphin Tale 2 in 2014 and still lives at the aquarium. Winter died in November 2021.
Room to grow
An expansion opened in October 2020 with a dolphin complex of five connected pools holding about 1.5 million US gallons, and in 2024 a Manatee Rehabilitation Center took its first patients.
This history belongs to the place and the people who shaped it. The History page offers a longer introduction, and the timeline gives a short route through selected milestones.
Read at the source
Sources & further reading
Links lead to the original publishers.
