page_title: North Carolina Aquariums
section_title: North Carolina Aquarium at Fort Fisher
hierarchical_section_title: North Carolina Aquariums / North Carolina Aquarium at Fort Fisher
caption_attribution_description: Sign at the entrance to the North Carolina Aquarium at Fort Fisher. Photo taken with a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ50 in New Hanover County, NC, USA.
context_page_description: North Carolina Aquariums is a system of three public aquariums located in Kure Beach, Roanoke Island and Pine Knoll Shores. All are operated by the Aquariums Division of the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources since 1976 and are accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums. All three aquariums feature dive shows, live animal encounters, and feeding programs.
context_section_description: The focus of the North Carolina Aquarium at Fort Fisher, in Kure Beach, is to educate visitors about the waters of the Cape Fear region. The aquarium was recently named among the Best Aquariums in the United States by the Travel Channel and is one of the Top Ten Attractions in North Carolina. The Cape Fear Conservatory, the visitor's first stop in the aquarium, features freshwater life. In this large, tree-filled atrium, streams, ponds and swamps are home to frogs, snakes, bass, catfish, and perch. Box turtles hide among the Conservatory's groundcover. American alligators native to North Carolina occupy one of the larger exhibits in the Conservatory. An albino alligator exhibit opened in 2009. In 2006, the aquarium opened an exhibit featuring the venomous snakes of the region, including several species of rattlesnake, copperheads, and cottonmouths.
  The Coastal Waters Gallery, which includes the Coquina Outcrop Touch Pool, provides hands-on opportunities to learn about sea urchins, horseshoe crabs, whelks, and other creatures of a rocky outcrop surf zone. Masonboro Inlet Jetty features the fishes common around a wave-washed rock jetty, an indoor salt marsh, a sea horse habitat, and a loggerhead sea turtle display.
  The Open Oceans Gallery includes Sharkstooth Ledge, which features fish common to offshore North Carolina, such as pufferfish, hogfish, and filefish.  The gallery also displays octopus, jellyfish, and corals native to the state's waters.  A new multimedia suite features an extinct whale-eating shark called Megalodon. This exhibit, opened on July 1, 2011, includes projections on a 23-ft curved screen, as well as interactive holograms and touch-screen interfaces.
  Holding 235,000 US gallons (890,000 l; 196,000 imp gal), Cape Fear Shoals is the largest of the aquarium's saltwater exhibits.  The 24-foot (7.3 m)-deep replica of an offshore reef affords two-story, multi-level views of large sharks, stingrays, groupers, and moray eels.
  The Exotic Aquatics Display features animals native to Indo-Pacific and other ocean regions. These displays include spiny lobsters, the red lionfish (Pterois volitans), and a North Carolina native, the spotted scorpionfish. They are both known for their inconspicuous, venomous spines. Lionfish are native to the Indian and Pacific Oceans, but in 2000 were confirmed as having established themselves in North Carolina. Australian spotted jellies, recently invasive in U.S. coastal waters, are among the gallery's newer exhibits. In June 2012, the aquarium opened the Bamboo Shark Touch Pool exhibit which allows visitors to touch live bamboo sharks. Bamboo sharks are considered harmless to humans and the aquarium hopes to educate visitors about sharks through interaction.
  The 550-US-gallon (2,100 l; 460 imp gal) Pacific Reef Display features living corals, giant clam, anemones, cardinalfish, hawkfish, clownfish, wrasses, surgeonfish, and nearly a dozen other fish species.
caption: Sign for the aquarium
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