Entertainment • Dancers
perform the Brazilian dance Capoeira
Centrosul at the Aquarium of the Pacific’s
Baja Splash Festival. Stephanie Reyna
/ Daily Forty-Niner
Baja
Splash kicks off Hispanic Heritage Month
By
Stephanie Reyna
Daily Forty-Niner
Contributing Writer
Mariachi music and folkloric dancers performed in front of a backdrop of leopard
sharks, giant sea bass, rays and other marine life at the Aquarium of the Pacific
last weekend.
The dancers and musical acts were all part of the fourth annual Baja Splash
event celebrating National Hispanic Heritage Month and Mexican Independence
Day.
Capoeira Centrosul — a Brazilian martial art that fuses dance, martial
arts, and acrobatics — Folkloric dancing, Mariachi and Marimba Guatemala
India music all performed in front of the Blue Cavern, the Aquarium’s
142,000-gallon, three-story high exhibit which stands at the end of the Aquarium’s
Great Hall of the Pacific and features ocean inhabitants found off the coast
of Catalina Island.
Special menus were available during the event. Ethnic food like fish tacos,
pork pupusas, pepian en pollo, chicharones de harina, flan and horchata were
available for visitors to sample and buy.
Children had the opportunity to use their creativity at the crafts table sponsored
by the Museum of Latin American Art. There they had the chance to make a mosaic
mask.
Families were also invited to the Marine Life Theater to listen to Cultural
Storytelling and Music.
The Aquarium’s weekend also showcased the different marine life from
the waters of Southern and Baja California, Mexico and Central and South America.
Visitors were given a Baja Splash Fish Finder Program to help locate and identify
the diverse fish. In the Aquarium’s Southern California/Baja Gallery
fish from Mexico’s Sea of Cortez were on display.
The Sea of Cortez is considered one of the most biologically diverse seas in
the world. Out of 800 fish species that live there, 17 percent are not found
anywhere else.
As part of the event two biologists from Mexico came to the aquarium to speak
about the Sea of Cortez and the endangered animals. Jose Zertuche, director
of Baja California, Mexico’s Institute of Oceanographic Investigations
at Universidad Autonoma de Baja California, talked about the endangered Vaquita
Marina.
His program brings local and American students and fishermen together to help
take data and information on the different animals. They are so focused on
their mission because the population of the Vaquita Marina is less than 600.
Sea turtle researcher Antonio Resendiz talked about sea turtles and how his
program is helping to keep them from being hunted by poachers. He also forms
a group consisting of students and fishermen to help tag and research the sea
turtles.
“We are promoting development without hurting the environment, we are being
creative about creating conservation,” he said.
With their program he said that they have seen less accidental captures of
the sea turtles and have seen the sea turtle population rise.
The Aquarium of the Pacific is a non-profit institution. Home to more than
12,500 animals, the aquarium explores the waters of Southern and Baja California
and the Northern and Tropical Pacific. |
