Marooned! The Labor Day Hurricane and Shedd’s “Lost Car Crew”

This hurricane season marks the 75th anniversary of the Labor Day Hurricane, a category 5 storm that is still the most intense ever to strike the United States. It certainly made some memories for the Shedd collecting crew that weathered it in the Florida Keys. Be sure to vote for your favorite Shedd recollection in our Share a Memory, Make a Memory contest to celebrate the aquarium’s 80th anniversary, and read on….

Shedd Memories

Thank you to everyone who submitted a favorite memory to our Share a Memory, Make a Memory Contest.  We were overwhelmed by how amazing all of the entries were.  It was incredibly difficult to narrow down a top 5 as all of the stories were truly wonderful!

Please take a second to read each of the 5 memories and click the like box under your favorite memory.

Keep the waters pharma-free

We’ve all been there: staring at a half-empty, expired prescription in the cabinet, wondering what exactly we’re supposed to do with old pharmaceuticals.

What we should do is dispose of them properly and never flush or dump medications down the drain. It doesn’t matter whether the drugs are prescriptions or over-the-counter cough syrups. Medications can be life-saving for people, but human drugs aren’t good for wildlife. Once they enter the water cycle, even small amounts of pharmaceuticals can be harmful.

Bon Voyage, Marley

Shedd’s Grand Cayman blue iguana, Marley, is off to bluer pastures. On Wednesday, Sept. 22, he left his home of 13 years at Shedd for the Indianapolis Zoo, where he’ll join six other blue iguanas, including four females. On his last day at Shedd, aquarists treated him to a lei of hibiscus flowers, which he immediately ate.

Shedd Memories

We've asked you for your favorite Shedd memories, now here are a few of ours. There are still a few more days to submit your memories to our Share a Memory - Make a Memory Contest for the chance to win a penguin encounter for 4 and a $200 gift card to our right bite partner Trattoria no. 10.

"It was during the opening summer of the Wild Reef in 2003 when this occurred. Wild Reef was (and continues to be) an opportunity to discover a very specific story from the Philippines about people’s connections to natural resources. And this part of the exhibit is where my story takes place.

How rare is this?

Not once in a blue moon. Maybe one among 2 million, or 3 million, or possibly 5 million. That’s scientists’ rough estimate of the occurrence of a blue Atlantic lobster.

The color is a breathtaking, intense Prussian blue—and a genetic defect inasmuch as affected baby lobsters stand out like a blue-plate special on the ocean-floor cafeteria. But if one does survive to adulthood—the real rarity—and is hauled up in a fisherman’s lobster trap, it’s almost guaranteed NOT to land in a pot of boiling water. Instead, it will be donated to an aquarium or science center.

September birthday celebrations

Drumroll, please, for one of our aquatic acrobats, Pacific white-sided dolphin Katrl! By our best estimates, Ms. Katrl turns 23 this month.

She arrived at Shedd from the waters off San Diego in December 1993, at which time our marine mammal experts estimated, from her length and weight, that she was 6 years old. Pacific white-sided dolphins calve from summer to late fall, so our best calculation is that she was born in September 1987.

Carnivores, herbivores—LOCAVORES!

Poor farmers. They awake hours before dawn to bring their produce to Chicago’s Green City Market, whether it’s 90 degrees, or 50, only to be greeted by customers like me.

"Can I get 24 button mushrooms?" I asked last Wednesday. Normally, I don’t plan my grocery trips down to the last fungus, but I wasn’t shopping for me. My list—which included three blueberries per meal—was for Shedd’s animals.

Otterly unforgettable

Halloween night, 1989. We stood outside, bundled against the cold, waiting for some real treats: four sea otter pups for Shedd, arriving by cargo jet at O’Hare International Airport.

The otters’ arrival in Chicago was the end of a long, arduous experience that began in March of that year when the Exxon Valdez ran aground in Prince William Sound, Alaska, disgorging 11 million gallons of North Slope crude into waters and shorelines teeming with wildlife—including the season’s newborn sea otters.

Fish of the Month - domestic farmed catfish

September’s Fish of the Month is domestic farmed catfish.

There are 39 known species of catfish in North America, only one of which we farm commercially: the channel catfish. In the wild, channel catfish can live up to 40 years and grow to weigh nearly 60 pounds. They’re a freshwater species, thriving in clear water habitats with coarse sand or gravel bottoms. Channel catfish are omnivores, which mean they eat both plant food (such as algae and seeds) and animal food (such as snails and crawfish). They detect their food visually, but also have taste buds all over their bodies!

Channel catfish is one of the most commonly farmed fish species in the United States, generating the most volume and revenue of all domestically farmed fish. It’s an important industry in the southeastern U.S., particularly in Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama and Arkansas. Channel catfish are farmed in closed, inland ponds. Those are a much more environmentally friendly alternative to farming fish in the open ocean, where pollution, escape and disease transfer often occur. Plus, because channel catfish are omnivores, they’re fed a primarily vegetarian diet instead of fishmeal – thereby minimizing the need to catch wild fish to feed farmed fish.