Hurricane Katrina-New Orleans aquarium and zoo update

The following update, some good and some bad, was reported on the online Times-Picayune on 9-4-05. SeEtta:

Some Fish Die At Aquarium
Sunday, Sept. 5, 2005 10:50 p.m.

By Jim Varney
Staff writer

While there were plenty of fires still smoldering in New Orleans on Sunday, the black smoke belching from the roof of one of the city’s crown jewels has regrettably stopped. The generator at the Aquarium of the Americas is shot.
Its demise signaled the death of scores of gorgeous animals according to stricken workers who moved through the building with miner’s lights strapped to their heads.
“These were our buddies. We did the best job we could to keep them alive,’’ said John Hewitt IV, director of husbandry and a senior vice president at the Audubon Nature Institute.
Near tears Hewitt declined to describe the watery tombs inside the aquarium. Most of the fish in the giant shark tank and the Caribbean reef exhibit are feared dead, as well as the tropical sting rays and other Amazonian fish in the aquarium’s rainforest section.
A similar tragedy reportedly has not befallen the New Orleans Zoo, another prime tourist attraction and a source of tremendous civic pride.
And all is not lost at the zoo’s watery partner at the foot of Canal Street. Hewitt identified the aquarium’s thick green anaconda and white alligators as among the survivors.
“They’re fine and frankly we’re in no hurry to move those guys,’’ Hewitt said.
Also making it through Hurricane Katrina were the aquarium’s sea otters, its bald eagle and most of its penguins. Hewitt said in the coming days the aquarium’s staff will try to find alternative homes for the fish and birds.
No decision has been made on a timetable for that move or on whether to drain the tanks before the dead fish are removed.
“We’ve had offers of help from all over the world,’’ he said. “What we’ll do now is access the health of the living animals and get them relocated wherever we can.”