Water parameters in the animal habitats, including temperature and salinity, are also tracked and controlled by an automated system. But Shedd not only saves energy, by installing everything from LED bulbs to a new insulated thermal pane glass dome it also produces energy with a field of 913 solar panels on its roof and a 1-megawatt battery on the grounds. The aquarium has cut energy use by about 12 percent in the last five years-no small feat for an 89-year-old building that operates 24/7 to maintain 32,000 animals. The totally automated system adjusts for temperature, building occupancy and other factors for maximum efficiency. In Shedd’s sustainability command center, multiple screens display data from a sub-metering system that monitors and manages the aquarium’s energy consumption in real time. Most of the animals are rehabilitated for release, but when some, like sea otter pup Luna, cannot be returned to the wild, Shedd has been able to offer them specialized care in a permanent home. Today Shedd’s Animal Response Team is always ready to pack and be on a plane to assist aquatic wildlife in need.Ĭollaborating with other aquariums, conservation organizations and rescue facilities, our animal care experts have traveled to South Africa to help rehabilitate endangered African penguin chicks that were abandoned by their parents assisted in a binational rescue and airlift of a lost young beluga whale in Canada joined forces with other beluga experts from the zoological community in the first successful rescue and rehabilitation of a calf in Alaska nursed sea lion pups back to health during a mass stranding in California and cared for orphaned and stranded sea lion pups on California’s coast. Rescued sea otter Luna benefitted from Shedd’s experience caring for orphaned pups-going back to responders who assisted in Alaska after the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989. This project, begun in 1994, is Shedd’s longest-running conservation research program, and Shedd is recognized internationally as the leading authority on the rock iguanas of Andros and the Exumas. Research in the Exumas has expanded to monitoring the physical and behavioral effects of contact with tourists, who often offer the iguanas unnatural foods.ĭata collected by Shedd biologists continue to inform management plans for the iguanas developed by the Bahamas government. Through the aquarium’s fieldwork, outreach in local schools and an advisory role in the expansion of a national park in Andros to protect critical habitat, iguana populations are recovering slowly. Both were decimated by illegal hunting, predation by introduced domestic and feral animals, habitat degradation and smuggling for the illicit trade in endangered species. Shedd’s research focuses on two subspecies endemic to Andros and the Exumas, outer islands in the Bahamas archipelago.

Shedd Aquarium is committed to the conservation of Bahamian rock iguanas, which are among the most endangered lizards in the world.

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