NEWPORT – Two dogfish sharks swim up close to the surface of one of the several touch tanks at the new Save The Bay Hamilton Family Aquarium, letting pairs of small hands reach out and touch their smooth, slimy gray backs. A gaggle of more students scamper through the glass tunnel underneath the central fish tank.
“This aquarium was envisioned and designed and built to inspire people through connection to Narragansett Bay to get involved in protecting the bay itself,” Save The Bay Executive Director Topher Hamblett told a crowd of students and community members at the ribbon cutting on Monday. “This is why we are here, this facility, we think will be an inspiration to people in the city, on the island, in the state and throughout the region and this is a very exciting time for all of us. This is going to be a transformational aquarium for all.”
The ribbon was cut on the new aquarium inside the Newport Gateway Center on Monday, signifying the opening of the sleek, newly constructed exhibits for educational trips from schools all across the state. Starting March 28, the aquarium will be open to the rest of the public.
Why the aquarium moved
Hamblett, whose favorite exhibit is the jellyfish tank, said the new facility is 7,000 square feet, a big step up from the 1,500 square feet the Save The Bay Exploration Center and Aquarium that was housed inside the Rotunda building on Easton’s Beach since 2006. In 2012, Superstorm Sandy flooded the beach building, which led the organization to look for new facilities. Save The Bay seized its opportunity in 2020 when Discover Newport moved out of its space in the Newport Gateway Center. Over the next three years, the organization spent millions of dollars to renovate the space and moved its animals over, acclimating them to their new tanks just steps away from Newport’s main transportation hub and bus station.
“We believe that this is one of the first aquariums in the country to be located in an intermodal hub,” Mayor Xay Khamsyvoravong said to the crowd on Monday. “So whether you’re getting here by ferry, whether you’re taking a bus in, whether you’re walking, one of the first things you see when you come into the city of Newport is an institution that highlights the impacts of climate change and how we all can do our part to make a difference by learning more about our bay and doing all that we can to support it."
What's in Save The Bay's new aquarium
In addition to an increase in square footage, the new space is outfitted with touchscreen displays giving visitors more information about Narragansett Bay, a sand tray with a projector that shows changes in elevation as visitors move the sand around, several touch tanks with local animals like horseshoe crabs and dogfish sharks, a “Bay at Night” exhibit with jellyfish and an octopus and several tanks with fish and turtles.
Next to the dogfish touch tank, Aura Hernãndez points out the model of a basking shark hanging from the ceiling, explaining in Spanish what the animal is to a group of Thompson Middle School students who came to help cut the ribbon. Hernãndez, whose favorite exhibit is the tank of tropical orphan fish carried to New England through the Gulf Stream, is one of many multilingual educators with Save The Bay and regularly visits schools across the state to teach students about marine biology and Narragansett Bay.
“It’s so awesome being able to let them have their chance to explore and touch a shark and skates,” Hernãndez said. “I had a little pod of students walking around with me and I was talking to them in Spanish, just connecting with them a little more. It was really heartwarming.”
Like many in the organization, Hernãndez had previously worked at the location on Easton’s Beach before it closed.
“I think it was just for the best that we kind of moved to a new location and I’m so glad that this location came up,” Hernãndez said. “We’re so glad that we’re able to reach more people now through our educational space here.”
The rotunda that formerly housed the aquarium is actually the only one out of three main buildings on Easton’s Beach that will not be demolished this summer. Hamblett said it has been a bittersweet goodbye for the staff that worked at the beach facility.
“While there is a little bit of sadness for leaving the old place, we’re beyond excited to be here,” Hamblett said.
The aquarium received unanimous praise from a group of Thompson Middle School fifth-graders that spoke to The Newport Daily News alongside their science teacher, Melissa Turner, on Monday. The biggest hits for Reagan, Jane, Kensie, Ariella, Amaya and Lily were the sand tray and the fish tank tunnel, but they learned several new facts about creatures from the waters in Narragansett Bay. The six explained how they learned that diamondback turtles like to bite, starfish have five eyes, and one student even learned there was a particular reason why the horseshoe crabs kept crawling, or rather mounting, on top of each other.
“We have been so lucky at Thompson Middle School because Save The Bay has been a huge supporter of our education and over the past several years, they have anonymous donors, so they channel those funds to allow our students to do things like this, to go to the aquarium, to go out on exploration vessels, that our budget would not sustain without the support of those donors,” Turner said.
