A trainer petted JD, a northern fur seal, before she was fed yesterday at the New England Aquarium in Boston. The seals are fed 10-12 pounds of fish and squid four times a day.
(Yoon S. Byun/ Globe Staff)
Aquarium hopes for renewal with marine mammal center
Pavilion is first addition since ’01
A trainer petted JD, a northern fur seal, before she was fed yesterday at the New England Aquarium in Boston. The seals are fed 10-12 pounds of fish and squid four times a day.
(Yoon S. Byun/ Globe Staff)
The whiskered mammal shimmied onto the fiberglass rock, shook the gray blubber behind her pointy snout, and gazed through a glass wall surrounding her small pool out to the waves of Boston Harbor. Then she let out a massive shriek.
Their trainer was running a few minutes late, and Cordova, an 80-pound adult female northern fur seal, was growing restless for her afternoon feed of herring, capelin, and squid.
“We joke that our neighbors are going to think we have a serial killer on the property,’’ said Tony LaCasse, a spokesman for the New England Aquarium, as he showed off the sprawling building’s newest addition.
Cordova is one of a group of five seals, and potentially several California sea lions, that will make their home in the new Marine Mammal Center, a $10 million open-air pavilion at the back of the aquarium.
It is the first new addition since the
LaCasse said the staff hopes that the new exhibit, scheduled to open tomorrow, draws more visitors to the 40-year-old aquarium, which has been criticized in recent years for being dilapidated, with murky glass on its centerpiece tank and exhibits with burned-out lights.
About 1.3 million people a year visit the aquarium.
The Marine Mammal Center - paid for with private donations that included a $3 million contribution from New Balance, the Brighton-based shoe company - will feature four presentations a day and can accommodate hundreds of people at a time.
The exhibit will open with Cordova and two other adult female northern fur seals, Ursula and JD, all of which were born in captivity.
Fur seals were nearly hunted into extinction in the 19th century, when more than 120,000 a year were killed for their thick pelts. Hunting fur seals was banned in 1966.
The acrobatic Cordova, 12, was acquired from the New York Aquarium in 2006. JD, a more subdued adult at age 19, also came from the New York Aquarium this month. Ursula, also relatively shy compared with Cordova, is 11 years old and came to Boston from Mystic Aquarium in Connecticut in 2006.
A fourth seal, a young adult male named Isaac, will remain in a holding area for several weeks before joining the others. Later this summer, the aquarium plans to add a 450-pound adult male named Baranov.
The new center features a 60-foot-long pool with 68,000 gallons of water, ranging from 6 inches to 7 feet deep. Signs in the area offer facts on the seals, including an explanation for why trainers brush the seals’ sharp teeth.
A new wrap-around walkway connects the back of the aquarium with the rest of the waterfront.
Yesterday, the seals were being primed for their introduction to the public. Using scraps of squid to reward the seals, the trainers showed how they can salute, use their long hind flippers to turn around in circles, and allow trainers to stick their hands into their open mouth.
“We do what we can to keep them interested in what’s happening here,’’ said Kathy Streeter, curator of the aquarium’s marine mammals.
David Abel can be reached at dabel@globe.com. 
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