Aquarium scoured globe for exotic creatures - some deadly

Construction takes time.

For months, the visible signs of a $25 million renovation have been all around the Virginia Aquarium. Temporary walls hung with placards begging pardon for sawdust and noise mix with hammers, saws, hard hats and trailers in the parking lot as the “Restless Planet” expansion takes shape.

What few visitors know is that some of the hardest work began long before construction started.   Nearly three years ago, William “Chip” Harshaw started looking for a Komodo dragon.

The largest lizard in the world is protected in its native Indonesia; no wild dragons have been captured for years. The aquarium wanted one for its new exhibit and, more specifically, for the volcanic Flores Island display.

“Restless Planet” brings prehistoric Virginia to life through exhibits of modern-day environments from around the world. For example, the Malaysian peat swamp habitat shows what Virginia was like 360 million years ago when coal deposits were being formed. The Sahara Desert display compares to the region around Saltville in southwest Virginia circa 440 million years ago, where evaporating seawater left deposits of salt and other minerals.

The Flores Island exhibit showcases the environment of some 544 million years ago, when Virginia’s Mount Rogers and other volcanoes were active. The island is in Indonesia, and Indonesia has Komodo dragons, hence … well, you can see where this is going.

Most endangered animals exhibited by members of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums have a Species Survival Plan. The plan manager tracks the location of animals in North American facilities, arranges matings to protect genetic diversity and finds a home for offspring, all aimed at helping the species survive. For Komodo dragons, the plan manager is at the San Diego Zoo. Harshaw, curator of mammals and reptiles, submitted his request.

“After a couple years going back and forth, a dragon born at the Denver Zoo was identified for us,” Harshaw said, standing in front of the pen where the dragon, named Teman, basked  under a sunlamp. “He likes his back scratched and his neck scratched.”

Teman is not yet on display. He spends his time in a room with a “Close This Door at Night” sign displayed, which is down a hallway protected by a “Staff Only” placard. He must be fed, cared for and entertained, even though he draws no paying visitors yet. But for an aquarium wanting a Komodo dragon, there was no choice – they had to take Teman when the Species Survival Plan made him available.

“You only get one shot at an opening,” Harshaw pointed out.

Dragons are notorious for explosive speed and strength, so the door to his room is strong. Teman’s keeper hides his food throughout his room, under logs and inside cavities so he has to hunt for it using his foot-long tongue, as he would in the wild. Every month, Teman’s weight and measurement are reported to the Denver Zoo, his birthplace. He is on “permanent loan” to Virginia Beach, but Denver is his official home.

In adjacent smaller pens, perched on tree limbs and gazing out through the floor-to-ceiling chain-link barrier, are two young Komodo dragons, a brother and sister from a surprise clutch at the Columbus Zoo. They, too, remain behind the scenes while their habitat is finished. They are not the only residents of this hallway. In a world filled with paperwork, permits and bureaucracy, though not with unlimited animals, the work to fill the “Restless Planet” never lets up.   The Marine Animal Care Center is a nondescript metal building at the dead end of a street, several miles from the Virginia Aquarium. About 5,000 fish live there, in quarantine and holding tanks, waiting for the new exhibit areas to be finished.

It is a long process, filling a 120,000-gallon walk-through tunnel/aquarium with creatures from the Red Sea. Along with a 10,000-gallon coral reef display, this part of the “Restless Planet” compares Piedmont Virginia’s rift valleys (created 206 million years ago as the continents split up and the Atlantic Ocean formed) with a modern-day rift sea. Since the ocean is not an empty place, Beth Firchau, curator of fishes, began placing orders months ago.

“We have to take them when they’re available,” she explained, and that meant that when 50 fish of 12 species arrived on an airplane last week, she took them. The fish had been wild-caught near Egypt by a supplier that the aquarium knows to use ethical methods: no poison, only hand-trapping. They were allowed to settle down for a few days after capture, then flown to a distributor, where they were stabilized again. Then they went to Los Angeles, where they rested and were packed early  the morning of Nov. 14.

“They just take the red-eye over,” Firchau said, and began opening cardboard boxes labeled “Very Fragile,” “Please Do Not Drop” and “Keep Warm.” Inside were fish, packaged individually or in small groups in five layers of plastic bags which then had oxygen piped inside. Each bag of fish was packed in newspaper inside a styrofoam cooler, inside a large plastic bag, with a little warm pack. Firchau and the rest of the care center staff held each bag up to the light as they unpacked.

“Looks like the cardinals are messed up a little bit,” Firchau said, and she meant that some of the small fish were swimming on their sides or upside down, disoriented by the trip. This shipment featured deepwater fish, which Firchau describes as “delicate,” and it furthermore featured small deepwater fish, which she calls “extra delicate.”

Each fish was emptied into a large plastic bucket, given an air line to oxygenate the water, and dosed with medication to kill parasites. Most responded well. But some of the cardinal fish bulged, meaning that the air bladders that help keep them upright were overly full, perhaps from altitude and pressure changes.

Firchau punctured each one with a sterile syringe, drawing out excess air, and left them to recuperate. After an hour in buckets, they were netted and placed in a large tank resembling an above-ground swimming pool. Only one of the 50 fish, invoice price $3,177.69, was dead on arrival.

Other holding tanks contain native Virginia fish, Southeast Asian fish, Mediterranean fish and five snakehead fish captured from the Potomac River that cross exhibit lines: They are an Asian species now invading state waters.

Two more shipments are due this week. When the “Restless Planet” opens in spring 2009, at least 5,000 fish will be on display.   Visitors mill around an exhibit gallery, unaware that behind the wall is a narrow room, and in that room is a long case bristling with padlocks. Five are visible on the front, and a peek at the sides and rear reveal more. Inside the case, an Egyptian cobra rises and strikes at the glass where Harshaw is peering in.

“Extremely aggressive,” he said. “It is a highly venomous, extremely dangerous animal.”

And that is why, two years ago, he began searching the world for antivenin.

The two cobras now living behind the scenes will go in the Sahara Desert display. Visitors will walk on  floors  of simulated sand and rock, looking at animals such as Algerian hedgehogs, short-snouted seahorses and pale yellow creatures called fat-tailed scorpions.

“It happens to be probably the most dangerous scorpion in the world, because it’s in populated areas, so it’s responsible for the most stings,” Harshaw said. Because keepers come in daily contact with exhibit animals, the aquarium first researched scorpions to decide what kind to obtain.

“Are they aggressive? Can they jump? Can they leap at you? Well, can they sting through a glove?” he said. “Scorpions are not naturally aggressive, so it would be easy for caretakers to drop their guard. We never forget.”

In a refrigerator down the hall is the payoff, the result of two years of negotiation, much of it conducted through a translator: a row of plastic bins labeled with the names of the poisonous animals at the aquarium. The bins contain antivenin, packaged with a syringe for self administration.

Harshaw negotiated with the French makers of scorpion antivenin back and forth, going from their first refusal to provide it, to an offer of a batch near its expiration date, to the good supply now on hand.

Fat-tailed scorpions are easily obtainable in pet stores, but the Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center is one of only two facilities in the United States with the antivenin, he said. The staff could have relied on the other – Miami-Dade Fire Rescue – for antivenin, but didn’t want to risk transport delays and possible shortages.

Harshaw has to keep the import permits up to date, and he regularly fields calls about hobbyists whose pets get out of hand. The Roanoke police called when a man threatened his girlfriend with an Egyptian cobra. Richmond poison control called when a fer-de-lance escaped on the Eastern Shore. Harshaw is glad to have $3,000 worth of antivenin near at hand. The French supplier once warned him: “These animals could kill you.”

“I know,” Harshaw replied. “That’s why I’m calling you.”

As  for keeping the staff alert, the cobras are better than coffee, he said. Their cage is equipped with guillotine doors to allow the snakes to enter smaller travel ing cases without exposing anyone to their bite.

“The collection of animals that I’ve been charged with getting are not typical at all,” Harshaw said. “It’s a tremendous amount of phone calls, travel and networking.”

Earlier in the fall, Harshaw wrangled permission to fly with FedEx to Canada, then to Florida, traveling with a rare crocodile called a tomistoma.

Native to Southeast Asia, tomistomas are losing habitat, but they don’t take readily to captivity. Over the past 30 years, fewer than 10 have hatched in the United States. It has taken Harshaw seven years to establish himself in the community of tomistoma caretakers. He flew to Thailand for extensive training from a private breeder who is trying to save the species. The female tomistoma destined for the aquarium was first flown to a breeding facility in Florida. If she gets along with a male there, the two will travel north to Virginia, which is, of course, for lovers. Harshaw will accompany them.   The fish are several miles away right now, in holding tanks. The tomistoma is several hundred, in Florida. The staff continues working on permits and quarantine and training, learning how to care for new animals and habitats. The Red Sea tunnel alone will take  six to eight weeks’ startup time to get the water chemistry and temperature right before the fish can be placed in it, a process that will take  three to four weeks itself. Even the little plastic buckets holding one fish at a time receive extreme care.

“It’s pretty labor-intensive, but if you do it right, the payoff is exactly what you want,” Firchau said. She looked around the marine animal care center at the tanks holding the Red Sea fish, acclimating themselves to a new home without parasites or predators or hunger.

“Everybody,” she said, “looks real good.”

Diane Tennant, (757) 446-2478, diane.tennant@pilotonline.com