The Mexican city of Mazatlán, on the shores of the Pacific, The Gran Acuario Mar de Cortés opened this Tuesday, Considered the largest in Latin America, where you can see and learn about 200 endemic marine species of one of the planet’s natural treasures.
Decades ago, the French oceanographer Jacques Cousteau described the Sea of Cortez, between the Mexican northwest coast and the Baja California peninsula, as as the “world aquarium” for the diversity and richness of its ecosystem.
The building, designed by the Mexican architect Tatiana Bilbaocelebrate this legacy. It is thought of as a “ruin” from which plants grow and surrounded by a natural lagoon where pelicans splash a few meters from the sea.
How can you build an aquarium when you are next to the largest aquarium in the world?” Bilbao said on a tour with journalists to explain the challenge behind the work.
The answer was to make a different space. “More teaching than entertainment. A place to live together, ”she stated.
The initiative, which began in 2017 and has been financed with a public-private investment of 1,800 million pesossurprises with its tanks for the recovery of turtles, an oceanic fish tank with 2.5 million liters of water and the sessions in which visitors can feed the rays.
Not only are marine species seen, but also the force of the waves and tides.
We do not recreate an ecosystem. What is shown is the existing ecosystem in the Sea of Cortés,” Rafael Lizárraga, executive director of the Gran Acuario Mazatlán, located in the Mexican state of Sinaloa, and which has more than 50,000 square meters of space, added to EFE.
In 2005, Unesco recognized the Sea of Cortez as a World Heritage Site, considering the area as a natural laboratory for research on marine species.
Every year more than three million visitors come to Mazatlán, and it is expected that 900,000 of them go through the aquarium to become one of the main attractions.
The day of the inauguration of the largest aquarium in Latin America has arrived and it is a great honor and a satisfaction to be in this great event that is historic, because it will be a fundamental attraction to increase the overnight stay and the spillover for the plaza”, highlighted Miguel Torruco, Secretary of Tourism of Mexico, upon arrival in Mazatlán.
The Sea of Cortez, more than 1,000 kilometers long and between 40 and 200 kilometers wide, is home to 40% of marine mammals and a third of cetaceans, including the “vaquita marina”, an endangered porpoise. and symbol of conservation work.
However, for scientists, all the species are fundamental pieces for the maintenance of this unique ecosystem, where tiny seahorses and jellyfish coexist with hawksbill turtles and sea lions and humpback whales, which make a pilgrimage to its waters every year. .
For her part, Catherine Hart, who will be in charge of the aquarium’s turtle program and has more than 20 years of experience in the Mexican Pacific, told EFE “how environmental culture is improving in the region, children know that they have to take care of habitats” and for this the aquarium can play a very important role.
It will stimulate the biologists and scientists of the future,” Hart ventured.
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EFE International news agency based in Madrid and present in more than 110 countries.