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New York Aquarium News
Meet the Director: Jon Dohlin
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©WCS/J.Maher
| What’s the greatest challenge for the new director of the New York Aquarium? Curbing his enthusiasm! Jon Forrest Dohlin has a lot of plans as he looks to the future of this Coney Island legend.
Dohlin, who has been with WCS for more than a decade, has a background in both biology and design. In 1997, he joined WCS’s renowned Exhibition and Graphic Arts Department, located at the Bronx Zoo. He played an integral role on the design team for the Zoo’s Congo Gorilla Forest, and later became Project Manager for the Aquarium’s Alien Stingers and Glover’s Reef exhibits, as well as its Seaside Café. In 2006, as Project Manager in the WCS Department of Operations and Construction, Dohlin helped lead the restoration of the Bronx Zoo’s landmark Lion House.
So what does Dohlin have in store for the aquarium’s 12,000 animals—and its hundreds of thousands of yearly visitors? Read on to find out.
What can New Yorkers look forward to as you begin to renovate the Aquarium?
In our new Shark Exhibit, visitors will have a chance to see these magnificent creatures up close in a variety of ocean habitats, while learning about their importance to marine ecosystems and the threats they face around the globe. It will be a hands-on, interactive environment, with a massive open ocean tank that will arch over your head. Main Hall is one of our original buildings, and in need of some structural repair after fifty years. Visitors probably won’t even notice this work going on behind our new frog exhibit, but in a year or so, we’ll have added eight new exhibits featuring coral reefs, African lakes, and Amazonian flooded forests.
There’s also a new wildlife hospital that’s just admitting its first patients.
This is a tremendous benefit for our collection and our staff. We will formally open our new Aquatic Animal Health Center this summer, but we are already treating patients and performing some procedures. It’s critical that we are able to care for our unique group of animals—which includes mammals, birds, fish, and invertebrates—right here on facility grounds. The hospital is designed and outfitted to meet all of our needs. We’ve even got a special table that allows us to anesthetize, monitor, and operate on FISH! Now that’s cool, and this facility is the best of its kind in the entire Northeast, so we’re really breaking new ground in the care and treatment of our collection.
Coney Island is about to undergo a major transformation. How will the Aquarium help it maintain its character, and also fit in with the new plans?
Whatever happens in Coney Island—and something will happen soon—the New York Aquarium is going to be an important part of it. We are determined to be a good neighbor and a leading presence on the Boardwalk and in the neighborhood. Many people have seen the preliminary design work showing what the Aquarium’s perimeter might look like; one of the things we’ve done is to slow that process down to ensure that our “look” will be in harmony with the big design elements that may come out of the current Coney Island planning process. One thing is sure: we’ve been a welcoming destination here for fifty-plus years and that’s never going to change.
Do you have a favorite sea creature at the Aquarium?
I have been working with animals in one capacity or another for almost my entire life, but I have to admit I have never met any animal quite as charming and charismatic as our male walrus, Ayveq. He’s alert, clever, loves to interact with the public, and he’s raffish in a way that is totally fitting for Coney Island. I also think that our octopus is a great representative of one of the most interesting classes of animals, the cephalopods. I’m looking forward to figuring our how we can exhibit them better. They are fascinating in so many ways…physiology, behavior, anatomy, intelligence. I think visitors will find them just as interesting as I do.
With winter finally behind us, can you offer any tips for people planning a spring Aquarium visit?
Yes! When spring showers threaten, when temperatures are unpredictable, when you long to smell the salt air but the beach is closed, come to the New York Aquarium. You’ll discover a beautiful, enchanting indoor experience no matter what the weather, and you’ll be welcomed with open arms!
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