At Ucluelet’s collect-and-release aquarium, sea creatures come for a good time, not a long time

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It’s low tide on Big Beach in Ucluelet, B.C. Swells that have rolled across the huge expanse of the Pacific pound boulders and cliffs. White wash and foam washes slowly over the sand, and sunbeams cut through the trees and fog. Britt Buirs, the curator of the Ucluelet Aquarium, stands watching the water. “Yeah, we aren’t going to put anyone into that this morning,” she says with a laugh.

She and her team are working their way through the annual collection process for Canada’s first collect-and-release aquarium, located here on Vancouver Island. But on this February morning, the ocean has other ideas.

Instead of facing the waves they fan out across the beach, toting buckets and towing wagons, collecting sand and sediment that will provide the foundation for the array of tanks and displays the Ucluelet Aquarium hosts.

Originally opened as a mini aquarium on the Ucluelet waterfront in the spring of 2004, its growing popularity warranted a permanent facility, and by May, 2012, the current aquarium opened its doors.

The collect-and-release model means that everything gathered eventually goes back out to nature, which requires the teams to follow a strict schedule. December is the release period, when they return the animals – plus rocks and even sediment – to the ocean,” Ms. Buirs explains. “Then comes the exciting collection season, which is typically through the month of February. We give ourselves a month, as we are working around weather, tides, swell – all the exciting elements of nature.”

After that is the task of designing, building and filling all the exhibition tanks and aquariums, to make the spaces as comfortable as possible for their aquatic tenants. “We are trying to mimic as much as we can whatever we see outside,” Ms. Buirs says. “We try and mimic that habitat for them.”

But the team is also creating with their human guests in mind. “As an interpreter, when you are sharing this information it is more exciting to share when the visitor is also excited at what they see. You are trying to create that full picture.”

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And providing that authentic glimpse of sea life is especially important because Ucluelet attracts a different kind of visitor than your typical aquatic display. “I think our mandate around collect-and-release not only engages the general people who are interested, but also the people who might not go to aquariums because of it being an aquarium. … We have definitely had visitors who have been like, ‘I only came here because I know you release.’ ”

A lot weighs on Ms. Buirs and her team as they work around all the curveballs that a Ucluelet storm season can throw, but there is a tangible excitement and enthusiasm from the staff when tanks are filled and new creatures are added.

With 35,000 visitors during the 2022 season, they know the impact this space can have. “When you go to a large aquarium, you are noticing the large animals, the sharks … the otters, the mammals,” Ms. Buirs says. “When you visit us, I think you get to appreciate the small things.”

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