Feeding the Animals at Shedd

Behind the scenes, teams don a chef hat and begin preparation for the day at 6 a.m. Allocating and preparing the correct amount and types of food requires thoughtful planning and communication. Plenty of cooks are in the kitchen each morning to ensure every mouth is fed.

Up in the live foods lab at Shedd, team members begin their day kickstarting breakfast for many animals. This team functions as the farmers in our food chain, sourcing food from the best markets and growing food in-house to become more sustainable. The live foods lab grows many parts of the food chain, from organisms like zooplankton and algae to blue chromis and inland silversides. They play an important role in providing tasty but highly nutritious food. Serving nutrient-dense foods helps future generations of fish thrive, as the diet of parents correlates to the success of future offspring.

Many corners of Shedd rely on the live foods lab which feeds 16 gallons of phytoplankton a day to animals. From supplying brine shrimp to plankton, the live foods lab works as an engine that keeps other teams running.

Growing food onsite creates tailored diets and uniquely accommodates the smallest of animals. When animals are young, like larval fish or baby sea jellies, the size of the food they eat matters. Growing zooplankton, microscopic organisms around 2 millimeters, ensures the tiny mouths have the right size food.

Down in Wild Reef, the sharks are served a wide range of restaurant-quality, sustainably sourced seafood. Zebra sharks are fed squid, clams and a variety of fish. On occasion, they’re provided with what caretakers call a “fish burrito” — a fish-stuffed squid used to hide multivitamins that help keep the sharks healthy.

Swimming among the sharks is two critically endangered bowmouth guitarfish, animals with a mighty appetite. The bowmouth guitarfish eat a range of crustaceans, clams and crabs that are fit to be served at a restaurant, some of the highest quality and most expensive seafood at Shedd.

Resting on the bottom, you might spot the perfectly camouflaged spotted wobbegong shark. These intriguing animals are also called carpet sharks because they spend their life on the ocean floor. Like room service in a hotel, we deliver meals straight to the wobbegong shark by diving twice a week. You can join the shark and rays for brunch and learn more about shark mealtimes on a behind-the-scenes Shark Feeding Tour.

Luna, Cooper, Watson, Seldovia and Jade make up the raft at Shedd. Each day, the otter team is responsible for preparing 20 kilograms of food. That’s 44 pounds of fish, clams, shrimp, crabs and mussels! Unlike other marine mammals that rely on blubber for insulation, otters stay warm with their thick fur coat and fast metabolism. Otters will eat up to one quarter of their body weight per day to stay warm in cool water. For a typical adult sea otter, that’s up to 15 pounds per day!

Whole foods, like crabs and clams, can be used to practice food manipulation skills. Hard-to-open prey requires the skill to crack open. Learning these skills is not only important to get savory snacks, but to teach future generations of otters. At Shedd, we help non-releasable female sea otters develop these skills to potentially become surrogate mothers to orphaned otter pups as part of Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Sea Otter Surrogacy Program with their surrogacy partner, Aquarium of the Pacific. Surrogates will teach pups important skills like diving, foraging and opening hard-shelled food, all crucial techniques needed in the wild.

Food is often given to the animals through enrichment items, which provides opportunities for mental stimulation and physical activity. Prey sealed in a jar for the giant Pacific octopus or hidden in a toy for the beluga whales also creates variety, gives animals choice and control and encourages natural behaviors. Enrichment is for animals as puzzles are for humans. It keeps us busy, sharpens the mind and creates fun challenges to solve.

In Amazon Rising, three giant river turtles spend their days munching on lettuce, fruits and even pies! Pie-shaped meals incorporate frozen mushed bananas and pellet crusts filled with mashed sweet potatoes. These well-rounded meals provide everything necessary for their diet to keep turtles healthy.

Changes in how food is presented keeps snack time engaging. Frozen krill blocks or blended scallop smoothies are creative ways to deliver nutrients. Otters can be seen diving for sinking kelp stuffed with food. The kelp, compressed carwash felt, mimics an element of their natural environment and helps otters practice diving, picking up food and putting it in their pockets for later. Turtles engage with star pods, floating slow feeders that hold fruits and vegetables and rubber balls that sink to the bottom of the habitat, prompting them to swim down and search for food.

Shedd prioritizes sourcing sustainable seafood to feed the animals that live here. From white shrimp for stingrays or crabs for otters, food is verified by a tool called FishChoice that’s commonly used by Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) partners. Using sustainable seafood helps relieve pressures on popular fish populations and ensure wild animals have sufficient prey to hunt. See how you can become a culinary conservationist by using tools like Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch.

Growing food in-house, or even in our gardens just outside our doors, reduces the need to source food from elsewhere and decreases packing waste generated from shipping food. These small steps lead to a big impact and create healthier ecosystems for people and animals alike.

Feeding 32,000 animals can pose a difficult challenge, but with dedication, expertise and thought from across Shedd, we function like a 5-star restaurant. Yes, chef!