Sustainable Seafood Pleases the Most Finicky Palates

As a 7-year old, my food selections were predictably unadventurous. I would not eat a baked potato if it touched broccoli. Purple vegetables were inconceivable. If it was sweet, however, it had my name written all over it. Can you imagine anyone pickier than a second-grader?

Meet the Sea Otters

In celebration of Sea Otter Awareness Week, Sept. 25 through Oct. 1, we wanted to reintroduce you to Shedd’s five sea otters that make Abbott Oceanarium their home. If you’ve read our previous blogs about each of our otters, you already know quite a bit about these popular animals. For those who have yet to meet them, let’s take a moment to recap.

River Otter Rio

At the same time that we kick off Sea Otter Awareness Week, Sept. 25 through Oct. 1, we also celebrate World Rivers Day on Sunday. Established in 2005, World Rivers Day calls attention to the immeasurable value of healthy rivers to people, wildlife and ecosystems, and promotes citizen involvement to ensure the health of rivers worldwide.

To celebrate, we’d like to spotlight Shedd’s other otter, Rio. Her name, of course, means river.

Rio is a female North American river otter, Lontra canadensis. You can see her in the large Fox River habitat in our Local Waters gallery. This smaller, freshwater cousin of the sea otters is equally at home in the water and on land, often standing upright on her strong back legs and webbed feet to get a better view of things. River otters are slicker than greased lightning in the water, and they can also sprint across the landscape on all fours at up to 18 miles per hour.

Concert to Keep the Lakes Great

The Concert to Keep the Lakes Great starring Guster was a great success! Our audience enjoyed a live performance by Guster on the beautiful lakefront setting of The Dock at Montrose Beach. Thank you to all the wonderful fans that attended the show. A special thank you to sponsors of Shedd's Great Lakes conservation efforts: Coca-Cola and ArcelorMittal, as well as our event partner, 93XRT.














Guster performs at the Concert to Keep the Lakes Great.














Fans enjoy live music at The Dock on Montrose Beach.














The Great Lakes Booth at the event, featuring turtles native
to the Great Lakes.

All photos by Steve Hardy, CBS Digital Chicago.

Save vanishing species by mail

On Tuesday, Sept. 20, the U.S Postal Service issues the Save Vanishing Species “semipostal” stamp. When you purchase the 55-cent stamp—11 cents over the cost of a regular first-class stamp—you’ll help fund conservation programs for critically endangered species, including sea turtles like Shedd’s Caribbean Reef star, Nickel.

Meet the Jellies: Blue Blubber

In stark contrast to the dreamy moons, dangling nettles, drifting egg yolks and downright sedentary upside-down jellies, the blue blubber jellies are like rubber balls: compact, dense and bouncing all over their habitat with staccato pulses. Occasionally they bounce off each other like squishy bumper cars. No blood, no bones, no brain, no eyes....

September Fish of the Month: U.S.-Farmed Barramundi

September’s Fish of the Month is U.S.-farmed barramundi, and it's on Shedd's best choice list for sustainable seafood. Try our recipe for barramundi with spiced carrots and mint yogurt (find it below).

Besides having a mouthful of a name, barramundi is a delicious flaky whitefish making a big splash in the American environmental and culinary world. So why have you never heard of it? Barramundi is a river-dwelling fish native to the Indo-West Pacific region near Australia and Southeast Asia. Barramundi, pronounced bar-uh-MUHN-di, is both wild-caught and farmed in this region. Only in the last few years has barramundi made its arrival to farms and grocery stores around the United States.