Aquaria and marine environmental education

Marine aquaria claim that they help to elevate the current low profile of marine conservation through public education. The effectiveness of aquaria as centres for marine conservation education was assessed using social survey techniques, at three large commercial aquaria in the south-west of England. The aquaria managers did not believe that most visitors were interested in receiving educational information, in particular on conservation topics. Textual analysis revealed that aquaria's interpretative material contained very few references to conservation and portrayed a distorted image of the marine environment. The feedback from the questionnaires revealed no evidence for an increase in visitors' sympathy towards and understanding of marine conservation following a visit to an aquarium. The majority of visitors wanted public aquaria to increase their levels of interpretation. In particular, visitors wanted more information on conservation and how they, as individuals , could contribute to preserving the marine environment. As well as benefiting conservation, increasing the educational impact of aquaria could have significant commercial advantages, e.g. increased visitor satisfaction and numbers. Suggestions on how these mutual benefits could be achieved are briefly outlined. Their success will depend on the degree of cooperation which can be forged between commercial aquaria and conservationistsThis revised version was published online in October 2005 with corrections to the Cover Date.