||| FROM THE MAINICHI |||
KOBE — A new aquarium and hotel resort facility featuring western Japan’s only killer whale performances opens in Suma Seaside Park in this city’s Suma Ward on June 1.
Kobe Suma Sea World is a joint venture whose managing firms include the operator of Kamogawa Sea World in the city of Kamogawa, Chiba Prefecture. It replaces the former city-run Suma Aqualife Park aquarium, which closed its doors last May. Its predecessor’s dolphin shows will continue, along with new performances featuring parent and child orcas. The opening is part of a redevelopment of the Suma coastal area, aiming to bring in 2 million visitors annually.
The preview event included a spirited performance with the killer whale jumping high into the air and swimming with a trainer on its back at the Orca Stadium, which has a 2,500-person capacity and four pools holding 8,500 metric tons of water in total.
The resort has three buildings, including two stadiums for the orca and dolphin shows as well as the Aqualive facility, inherited from the former municipal aquarium, where visitors can view some of the roughly 560 species housed there, with the total number of creatures reaching about 19,000.
The facility, learning from the Great Hanshin Earthquake of 1995 in which power was cut, stopping water intake from the sea and leading to the deaths of many animals, employs a system that uses the ebb and flow of the ocean to take in water without power.
