Welcome

Using gen­er­a­tor power, we are mak­ing progress restor­ing life sup­port sys­tems to our aquatic exhibits through­out the WCS New York Aquar­ium. We have restored power to two of our main exhibit build­ings — Glover’s Reef and Con­ser­va­tion Hall. How­ever, we still have areas that we have not been able to fully assess as to when we can get them back on line. We are fac­ing a crit­i­cal period when we will have to decide if we are going to move some of our ani­mals. We are still work­ing around the clock to accom­plish what we need to do. We con­tinue to pump water out of the areas which house cru­cial oper­at­ing sys­tems.

As reported yes­ter­day, if we can­not be rea­son­ably cer­tain that we can get sys­tems oper­a­tional within the time lim­its we have set, we are pre­pared to tem­porar­ily relo­cate some of our ani­mals to other AZA aquar­i­ums in our region. This deci­sion would likely be made in the next 24 hours.

Mitik, the orphaned res­cue wal­rus, weath­ered the storm with­out inci­dent and seemed inter­ested and amused by all the activ­ity around him. Our adult wal­ruses, sharks, pen­guins, sea tur­tles, and sea lions all did well in the storm. Our fish col­lec­tion is also doing well as we have been able to main­tain tem­po­rary life sup­port on our tanks and exhibits since we lost power when the storm hit. This was made pos­si­ble by the extra­or­di­nary effort put forth by the team of pro­fes­sion­als we have at the New York Aquar­ium, led by its Direc­tor, Jon Dohlin. Our vet­eri­nar­i­ans have been work­ing with the ani­mal care staff to ensure the health and well-​being of all our ani­mals.

Over the past sev­eral days, many zoos and aquar­i­ums, local offi­cials, and indi­vid­u­als have offered encour­age­ment and sup­port. In this chal­leng­ing time, we are grate­ful to all for reach­ing out. In the days to come, we will keep you posted on the sta­tus of our ani­mals and the restora­tion of our oper­at­ing sys­tems. Once the sit­u­a­tion for our ani­mals has been sta­bi­lized and resolved, we will con­tinue with the detailed assess­ment needed to deter­mine when the aquar­ium will reopen. We look for­ward to work­ing with our sup­port­ers and local officials.