You Can Save Israel's Unique Aquatic Habitats!

The Aquarium has had a very successful year in 2019 and we look forward to learning and capitalizing on this success in the new year. Overall for the year 2019, total visitor numbers were 316,480. (In 2018: 258,270.)

In both the Succot and Hanukah vacations which took place during this past quarter, the Aquarium ran a number of successful activities related to the holidays.

These included workshops for all the family and information booths with guides. For example, the information booth in Hanukah was called : Eight Days of Hanukah and Eight Octopus Arms.

The Aquarium was delighted to host recently, Oklahoma Aquarium biologists, Amy Alexopoulos, Lead Aquarist of Marine Fishes, and Ann Money, Director of Research and Education, for a week of collaboration and learning. The visit was most successful and the Aquarium team benefited immensely from their insight and experience.

The Aquarium will work to further strengthen the ties between the two institutions and communities. We hope to be able to send more staff for training in Tulsa this coming year as well as work to create a relationship with the local Jewish community centered around the aquariums.

Stay healthy!

Rachael and the Aquarium Israel Team

The Gottesman Family Aquarium together with the Tisch Family Zoo were pleased to be able to host hundreds of families from the South of Israel during the period of rocket fire from Gaza last month. 

The City of Jerusalem sponsored nearly 2000 people from the Ashkelon area who were bused in for a fun day out. Additionally, both the Aquarium and the Zoo offered greatly discounted entry tickets to all visitors coming from areas where school had been cancelled because of the ongoing rocket attacks from Gaza. Many families from the towns and kibbutzes near Gaza as well as from other areas in Israel under fire, took advantage of this discount to come and bring their children for a quiet day in Jerusalem, away from the sirens and booms.

Recent new arrivals at the Aquarium include two gorgeous and elegant reticulate whiprays (Himantura uarnak).

Also called honeycomb whiprays, their dorsal sides are covered in an intricate pattern of conspicuous dark spots from which it gets the reticulate (meaning resembling a net or network) part of its name.   

Geographically they can be found in French Polynesia, Australia, the African southern and west coast, Indo-Pacific, Taiwan, and have been introduced to the Red Sea and eastern Mediterranean.They inhabit tropical and subtropical waters in sandy areas of coral reefs and in lagoons and estuaries.

Keep warm!

Rachael and the Aquarium Team