Schoona (SKOO-na) is the resident sea turtle at the Aquarium. She has been there for a number of years now and is estimated to be between the ages of 10 and 20. She was brought to the Aquarium after being found along the coast of BC/Alaska, lost, alone, and starving. 6 of the 7 species of sea turtles out there are not meant to swim all the way up to places like BC as it is much too cold for them (considering they’re cold-blooded and all). A fisherman found her and rescued her, some other things happened, she was rehabilitated, and wound up at the Aquarium. She was unable to be released because nobody knew where she was from. They could’ve put her back out by, like, Mexico or something and for all they know, she could’ve gotten lost again.

That was the gist of the story of Schoona we were told during the Encounter. We also learned about sea turtles in general, their shell, and other facts about them. After that, we went up to an area behind the scenes to “make” Schoona’s lunch. Sea turtles are mainly vegetarians, so the trainers give her red peppers, string beans, broccoli, lettuce, some fishy/squid stuff, a gel diet (this block of dark green stuff), and a vitamin E capsule. She needs so many grams of everything so what we did was weigh everything out.

Then, off we went to the shark penthouse (basically the area above the shark habitat).

Yes, Schoona swims with the sharks. Stingrays and some fish too. In order to section Schoona off from everyone else swimming around and to feed her, a pair of really bright lights (which is supposed to have vitamin D for her shell) is turned on, a red paddle is dunked into the water, and a shaker is rattled. Schoona immediately swims into this little section and a clear plastic board is placed so she doesn’t get out.

I was on one side of this sectioned-off area and some others were on the other side, both with our bowl of food for Schoona. From there, she basically swam around in circles to get each piece of food put into the water for her. Of course, we didn’t plunk our hands into the water to put food in. She could easily bite a finger or more off, so instead, we used plastic tongs (the nicer ones that are used to pick up scraps of garbage) to put in a piece of food at a time into the water, making sure we released the food before she could get a bite of the tongs as well.

That went on for about 15 minutes, and I had the privilege of touching her shell, which is pretty smooth.

Here she is taking a breath. During the duration of the Encounter (which was 60 minutes long), she took about 4 breaths.

She’s reaching for a string bean here. From above the water, Schoona is enormous compared to when I usually see her swimming around (not above water).

She’s heading to the other side for some more food. The green plastic bowl clearly shows her food sitting in there. Look at that giant shell!

Schoona gets fed only once a day and usually, it is the people doing the Animal Encounter that feed her. Cute.

Poor little Harbour Centre gets dwarfed by some of the tallest buildings in the world, but nevertheless, seems to be a perfect fit for tiny Vancouver. The Vancouver Lookout is the distinguishable top part of the Harbour Centre and looks a tad bit like the CN Tower.

Above (or maybe below) the Lookout is the Top of Vancouver Revolving Restaurant, which revolves once every 60 minutes and serves amazingly delicious yet extremely overpriced food. (I spent $24 on a grilled chicken sandwich there.)

An old photo from back in 2007 of the Top of Vancouver.

Glass elevators whisk you up to the top where you can enjoy a 360 degree view of Metro Vancouver.

There are also tours available when you’re up there as well as loads of informative displays about various places including Stanley Park, Chinatown, and even the Vancouver Lookout itself.

Enjoy the following photos taken from the Lookout (not that the previous 2 weren’t from there too).

The Vancouver Sun and The Province newspapers are 2 of the main newspapers read by locals and the building is seen here right by Canada Place.

This should be the Port of Vancouver. Loads of shipping containers get shipped to and from here every day.

GM Place should be the white roof building next to the colourful condo.

Yes, that is indeed GM Place. The bigger building is BC Place. The ginormous road to the right of BC Place is the Cambie Street Bridge. I don’t know what the building with the green dome & pointy roof is, but I do know it’s close to the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Gardens.

The Scotiabank Tower, one of the tallest buildings in Vancouver, can be seen here. Holy Rosary Church can be seen by the bottom left corner. It reminds me of all the churches in New York.

Here’s a better perspective as to just how small the Harbour Centre is. It may look a teensy bit like the CN Tower (pictured on the very left), but obviously, it is nowhere near the same height-wise.

It is completely evident in this photo that the Shangri-La is the tallest building in Vancouver. The Bell building can also be seen here.

Construction looms around Vancouver’s waterfront. Stanley Park, the cluster of dark green trees, can be seen in the background. The Convention Centre, mentioned in a previous post with the lighter green roofs, is also seen. The Chevron gas station sits in the middle of the water. Of course, the Lions Gate Bridge, connecting Vancouver with the City of North Vancouver, is just barely visible behind Stanley Park over the water. The mountains are called the Lions.

Just a side note… there’s actually a difference between North Vancouver and the City of North Vancouver even though everyone refers to the City of North Van as just North Van. North Vancouver is more industrial whereas the City of North Vancouver is more developed.

To the left are railroad tracks which are for the West Coast Express, trains that go all the way out to faraway places like Mission and Maple Ridge. This looks east, so in the distance is the rest of Vancouver and into Burnaby. The middle to bottom of the photo is of Gastown, distinguished by the “322 Water St” painted on the building.

And that about wraps up my Exploring Vancouver posts. Hope that was at least a bit informative and worth your read. I know I didn’t talk about the Aquarium, but I go there just about every week, so I’ll be sure to blog about any random things that come up.

BTW, the new baby beluga was born a few weeks ago to Aurora, mother of Qila and grandmother of Tiqa! (Basically, this new beluga is the half-sister and aunt to Tiqa. Read about their twisted family tree here.) The little one doesn’t have a name yet, but the Aquarium will definitely put out a baby-naming contest sometime in the fall.

The new beluga and Aurora swimming with Qila and Tiqa in the background. Photo taken yesterday (Saturday, June 20th) in the underwater viewing gallery (before the Aquarium even opened ).

Stay tuned for some dinosaur talk!!

Now, here’s the “twisted” part. Let’s get you filled in on some Vancouver Aquarium beluga facts if you’re not already familiar with them.

There are currently 5 belugas living at the Aquarium:

Kavna: She’s the oldest and is living behind-the-scenes right now because of Tiqa.

Imaq (E-mac): He’s the only male in the group and is living behind-the-scenes with Kavna right now. Apparently he likes to sleep with everyone. Imagine if he gets Kavna pregnant too. Oh my.

Aurora: She’s the mother to Qila (father is Imaq) and grandmother to Tiqa and is currently pregnant (by Imaq). She had another kid with Imaq in the past but that one passed away.

Qila (KEE-la): She’s the daughter of Aurora and mother to Tiqa (father is Imaq).

Tiqa (TEE-ka): She’s the newest beluga, still gray and growing, daughter of Qila.

Incest much, Imaq?

Well, it’s fine for belugas obviously. As long as they keep having more kids! Never a bad thing for them.

This new baby is scheduled to arrive sometime in June or July, which is when belugas are usually born. I really wonder how they’re gonna manage having two baby belugas in the same habitat. Will they move Qila and Tiqa elsewhere when Aurora gives birth? They’ll probably have to, since Qila had to be isolated from everyone.

They need a bigger habitat, that’s for sure.

I can’t even count how many times I’ve been to the Aquarium in the last 3 months — too many to count! Not really, but I have gone around and taken plenty of photos, which I’ll post up here. You can also see them on my Flickr photostream.

For those that don’t know, Qila gave birth to a baby girl on June 10, 2008, @ 4:28pm. She was in labor for approximately 3 hours. Her calf was fighting an infection near her tail about a couple of weekw ago, but has since fully recovered and gotten nice and plump! She’s filling out her fetal folds (like wrinkles) and is discovering more of her wonderful skills!

Now, my pictures aren’t all nice and pro, but I tried my best.