Underwater petting zoo

Yep you read it right, and let me tell you octopus.co.nz is certainly a place worth visiting, especially on a cold wet Wellington day.

Dennis saw a poster; very similar to this one, at the local library and after asking a few times we scheduled a trip down to Island Bay to check it out.



The trip down there was uneventful. If you can call traveling over the mountains, even ones these small, uneventful. I mean the views alone are enough to take your breath way. We saw glimpses of the south island through the rain, as the ocean was alive with white caps.



Arriving at the building we made a mad dash inside as it was pouring.

<<>>

I did not know what to expect and certainly at the time I would have never considered a petting zoo as one of the options. But there you have it, an aquatic petting zoo. Only in New Zealand I suppose.

The star of the place is a shallow table, elevated to the perfect height for adults and children (if they stand on the many boxes around the table) to see and touch the plants and animals that live in the Cook Straights. Here you see a very happy Dennis holding something very slimy.



All the plants and animals in the petting aquarium have about a two-week tour of duty then they are released back into the cook straights as another batch are brought up for duty. Some divers affiliated with octopus.co.nz go on weekend diving expeditions; I suppose it gives them some purpose to be at the bottom of cook straight.

The water in this aquarium, as well as all the others, is continually pumped in from the straight and drains back into the straight. So the animals are in as close to their native surrounds as they can be, except for the continual “petting” by all the kids (and adults I may add.)

I am sure you are wondering why they call it octopus.co.nz. So without further delay here is one of the two reasons.



I chatted up one of the attendances about the Octopus as it was just sitting there on the bottom of the tank. After a brief discussion about the history of the place he started to get the octopus attention. Thus the picture above, and this one of Dennis enthralled by the Octopus below.



There are two of them in the petting zoo. The other one was enjoying a crab dinner while we were there. Nothing graphic about this just sitting on the bottom of the tank tentacles wrapped about the crab in a death grip.

Now is a good time to explain a bit of the history of the place. A bunch of Italian fisherman settled Island Bay right after WWII. This building was where they would clean their catch before sending it off to the Wellington market. After years of the neighbors complaining about the smell the fisherman moved the cleaning station to another location and over time the building was abandoned. Well someone got the idea of the petting zoo and managed to pull together the required support (and funding.)

From the start this project was supported by the local fisherman. For some reason or another they loved the idea and donated their old tackle to the effort. And to this day they support octopus.co.nz by donating fish.

In addition to the odd octopus that gets pulled up in their nets there are native fish that are generally not on the supper table so they donate them to the museum. I wish I had taken a few more pictures of the inside of the place. Oh well next time, but one last picture for now ...

Dennis petting the octopus.