What is the Aquarium's commitment to research and conservation?

The mission of the Vancouver Aquarium Marine Science Centre is to conserve aquatic life through display and interpretation, education, research and direct action. Aquarium staff and Volunteers have been involved in the creation of Canada's first no-take marine protected area, beach clean-ups, wetlands restorations, wildlife rescue and rehabilitations, and population surveys of marine mammals and intertidal fishes.

Where does research occur?

Research occurs both in the field and at the Aquarium. Some initiatives are conducted in partnership with other organizations and other projects are conducted independently.

In the field: Year-round, the Aquarium participates in field research and assists scientists collecting data about wild populations. An example of Aquarium research in the field is a lingcod egg mass survey that monitors the annual spawning intensity and population age structure of lingcod in different regions of the Strait of Georgia and beyond. Another example is the on-going annual population survey of Northern resident and transient killer whales, a 25 year study.

At the Aquarium: Research is ongoing at Aquarium labs and with display animals, by graduate students and staff. For example, researchers conduct safe, basic research on the belugas in our care, analyzing food consumption, growth and reproductive cycles of belugas. Qila our youngest beluga, is providing valuable information about growth in baby belugas. Accurate information of this type is impossible to collect in the wild.

How is research applied to conservation?

Here are three examples from Aquarium and field research:

Field studies indicate that B.C. resident killer whales have a specialized diet of salmon. As West Coast salmon stocks decline, the dietary requirements identified by Aquarium studies provide important information in supporting conservation efforts that preserve adequate salmon for the whale populations.

Black rockfish were eliminated from the Vancouver Harbour area about 25 years ago. Black rockfish from Ucluelet have been tagged and released at Point Atkinson. Aquarium divers can safely survey an entire isolated reef at this location to determine whether a resident population can be reestablished.

Aquarium belugas acted as a healthy gene bank to which the DNA, or genetic material, of St. Lawrence belugas exposed to high levels of environmental contaminants could be compared. This gave scientists a measurement of the genetic damage caused by pollutants.