Every so often at the Academy, we hear about how some of the equipment used at our temporary Howard Street home is now meeting other organizations’ needs in unexpected ways. When all the animals had been moved out of Howard Street, we donated aquarium tanks to a number of institutions, including the Tiburon Salmon Institute.

This week, we heard from them that the National Marine Fisheries Service has been deeply concerned about their coho salmon hatchery near Santa Cruz, ever since the area was hit by wildfire this summer. The first rains of the year (now upon us) are expected to wash ash, silt, and other debris into the creeks which feed the hatchery, changing the pH of the water, and potentially clogging the gills of the endangered coho. So, NMFS called the Tiburon Salmon Institute, and is borrowing several of the donated 500-gallon tanks in order to protect the hatchery’s coho population from those harmful contaminants. We wish them every success! Read more about the situation here.

Next time you visit the Academy’s rainforest exhibit, look carefully at the fallen tree under water in the flooded Amazon level – it’s a favorite hangout spot for our visiting Arrau turtle (a.k.a. Giant South American river turtle, Podocnemis expansa), currently on loan from the San Francisco Zoo. It weighs approximately 45 pounds, and its sex and age are unknown. Native to South America, this species has been over-harvested by humans and is now classified as Endangered by the US Fish & Wildlife Service. This particular turtle was confiscated in Miami more than 10 years ago, and now acts as an Amazonian ambassador of sorts, reminding us that we need well-informed conservation strategies in place to protect river turtles and the other threatened species who share its habitat.