Businesses have banded together to provide a new home for the creatures at Japan’s oldest private aquarium after it closes in autumn next year.
Businesses have banded together to provide a new home for the creatures at Japan’s oldest private aquarium after it closes in autumn next year.
The Marinepia Matsushima Aquarium in Matsushima, Miyagi Prefecture, an area that boasts one of Japan's three great scenic views, could not fully recover from the damage caused by the 2011 tsunami.
But six companies, including Mitsui & Co. and local businesses, agreed to take over the staff and the animals at a planned new aquarium in the Miyagi prefectural capital of Sendai.
Sendai Kyuko, operator of the Matsushima Aquarium, will help operate the new aquarium, which will open near Sendai Port in 2015.
"I didn't want Miyagi Prefecture to lose its aquarium,” Naohiko Saijo, president of Sendai Kyuko, said. “I want the new facility to be a place where we can see the visitors' smiles."
The Matsushima Aquarium opened in 1927, and visitor numbers peaked around 1985.
About 800,000 people visited the aquarium annually, and the sea otters there were a popular draw. But the annual numbers have hovered around 300,000 in recent years.
After the Great East Japan Earthquake on March 11, 2011, a 1.5-meter tsunami flooded the aquarium, killing three American beavers. The workers toiled to restore and reopen the aquarium in late April, just over a month after the disaster.
But some of the facilities at the aquarium were built in 1974 and others in 1980. Doubts over their ability to withstand another huge earthquake lingered, and Sendai Kyuko decided to look for a new location.
With the help of the businesses, the new aquarium in Sendai will cover around 10,000 square meters and cost 6.5 billion yen ($71 million). Construction is scheduled to begin this year.
The aim is to build exhibits that reproduce the rich seas and rivers of the Tohoku region and can form a connection with people around the world who supported the disaster relief effort.
"We want it to be a facility that can contribute to the area as a symbol of the reconstruction," a Mitsui & Co. official said.
(This article was written by Yasushi Sato and Akiko Nagashima.)