Bookable
An Apollonaut travel guide
The place behind the detail.
A sardine cannery, a family foundation and a living kelp forest offer several ways into the story of the Monterey Bay Aquarium.
On this page
A cannery reimagined
The aquarium was built on the site of the Hovden Cannery at the end of Cannery Row. Parts of the old building were kept, and the cannery’s boiler house survives inside as an exhibit.
David and Lucile Packard created the Monterey Bay Aquarium Foundation in 1978, which still owns and runs the aquarium as a non-profit organisation.
Focused on the bay
From the start, the aquarium set out to show the habitats of Monterey Bay and central California rather than distant reefs. It pumps seawater straight from the bay into its exhibits.
Its Seafood Watch programme, begun in 1999, publishes advice on sustainable seafood.
New galleries
The Open Sea wing opened in 1996, and a deep-sea exhibition followed in 2022. The aquarium has long been known for its care of jellies and sea otters.
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.
