Aquarium Celebrates 80th Birthday

Bolton is not a town famous for many aquatic things, but its aquarium has been celebrating its 80^th birthday.

The Manchester Evening News has reported how the council and aquarium staff have been marking the anniversary of the opening of the facility in an underground location beneath Bolton Museum on Le Mans Street in the town centre.

It was opened on January 27th 1941, at a time when for most Boltonians a trip underground meant heading for the Anderson shelter to avid incoming Luftwaffe raids. All these years later, it remains the only public aquarium in Greater Manchester.

At the time, its collection was far from exotic; most of the fish were domestic species, of a kind that local anglers could have caught in rivers and ponds around the north west of England.  Often, local fishermen would actually offer some of their catch to the aquarium.

However, over time this changed as increasingly exotic species were introduced, and the aquarium now stocks a number of endangered fish.

This once included animals like reptiles like lizards and terrapins and small mammals such as squirrels, but now it is all about the fish. Over 70 different species now reside at the aquarium, which enjoyed visitor numbers of around 100,000 a year before the lockdown.

Among the stars are three river stingrays, endangered species from South America that have successfully bred at the aquarium. While the site was closed over Christmas, staff were able to celebrate the arrival of a baby ray on Christmas Day.

Commenting on the birthday of the attraction, Bolton Council’s cabinet member for libraries and museums Hilary Fairclough said: "We’re proud Bolton is home to the only aquarium of its kind in the region and 80 years is a wonderful milestone. It’s a fantastic place to visit for all ages.”

Councillor Fairclough expressed the hope that the aquarium will be able to reopen once Covid restrictions have been eased, but in the meantime the aquarium has kept in touch with the public via a series of educational online videos.

Running an aquarium of any size is not easy, of course; plenty of up-to-date equipment is needed as well as careful maintenance, although some of the work of keeping the underwater environment can be managed by the right fish stocks, such as algae eating marine fish, including catfish, plecos, cichlids, Siamese algae eaters and Florida flagfish.

The online information provided by the Bolton facility may prove both inspiring and informative for those establishing their own home aquariums. Similarly, as Cornwall Live reported last month, the National Marine Aquarium in Plymouth is providing weekly lessons for schoolchildren. These include ‘Mermaid’s Tales’ by the resident mermaid Marina.

Bolton’s unique status as the only aquarium in Greater Manchester is partly due to the city region no longer having a zoo, with Belle Vue Zoo having closed down in 1977. The only other aquariums in the north west of England are the Blue Planet Aquarium at Chester Zoo and the Lakes Aquarium at Bowness-on-Windermere in the Lake District.