Visitor Guide to Birch Aquarium General Information

Thank you for respecting the health of our animals and the experience.

◆ Keep voices low in exhibit areas.

◆ No tapping on marine life displays.

◆ As a courtesy, please silence cell phones.

◆ Please use trash and recycling bins.

◆ Birch Aquarium is smoke-free facility.

Photography

    For the safety of our live animals, please do not use flash photography. Visitors may be photographed or videotaped by aquarium staff for professional use, or by the media covering aquarium news. Entry into the aquarium grants permission for use of these images.

Refreshments

    Splash Cafe offers a variety of gourmet, sustainable, and organic sandwiches, snacks, and beverages.

Drinks, food, and gum are not permitted inside the aquarium.

Restrooms ＆ Baby Care

Changing tables are located in both the men's and women's restrooms.

Re-entry

    Please keep your ticket or have hand stamped at the Visitor Service Office if you plan to exit and re-enter the same day , including visits to Splash Coffee Shop.

Visitors with Disabilities

    See the Visitor Information Center for assistance. All exhibits are wheelchair accessible. Wheelchairs are available at no charge.

Emergencies /First Aid/ Lost ＆ Found

Go to the Visitor Service Office or alert the nearest staff member.

Don't Miss!

    Watch a diver hand-feed the fishes—including three species of sharks—during our Kelp Tank Dive Show.

Learn about this unique and beautiful undersea world during a live, interactive presentation. After your visit, view the exhibit at home through our live, online Kelp Cam.

    Spending money on a vacation may seem like a luxury（奢侈品）—but occasionally, you have to relax yourself. Here's where to go for a good time at an unbelievable value.

    Captiva Island, Florida

    Keep it simple by looking for seashells, or bicycling, jet skiing; you can even hit the tennis courts. The Summer Getaway package offers a fourth night free and rates from $209 a night, making the average for a four-night stay $157.Kids 12 and under eat breakfast free. You'll get a coupon（优惠券）book with more than $250 in savings on resort outlets（经销店）, from watersports, island cruises and more.

    Reyjavik, Iceland

    STA Travel Beats specializes in taking travelers to music festivals around the globe. It has an eight-day tour, Icelandic Beats, that takes you to the Icelandic Geothermal spas（水疗）, UNESCO world heritage sites, and black sand beaches. End your vacation at the Secret Solstice Festival on June 18. The tour is $1,218,not including airfare.

    Malpais, Costa Rica

    You get daily surfing instruction, sunset surf session, and yoga in the outdoor, oceanfront yoga studio in a week-long tour. As you get mind, body, and spirit together, keep it going with healthy meals at the beachfront restaurant. Prices are $2,895 for shared accommodations, $3,095 for private accommodations with shared bath, and $3,595 for private accommodations.

    Waterville Valley, New Hampshire

    Waterville Valley Resort is surrounded by 100 miles of trails in the White Mountain National Forest. If you get a Freedom Pass, you can save about $100 a day during a six-day tour; the pass enables you daily to have a two-hour mountain bike rental, unlimited tennis, a round of golf, and a kayak, canoe, or paddleboard rental. Rates start at $139 a night.

    One February afternoon, Jesus Delgado was on break behind T2 Tacos, where he works as a cook, when he heard a commotion(骚动). He ran to the front of the Los Angeles Taco stand and saw a man and a woman arguing. She was screaming for help and had two young boys at her side. All of a sudden, the man hit her in the mouth, seized the smaller boy, and ran down the street.

    "I followed my judgement and chased him." Jesus, 35, told the Argonaut newspaper. The older boy ran in the other direction to get help. A group of teenagers who had witnessed the attack assisted the woman, Lauren Kornacki, and called 911. She told them that she was the boys' babysitter.

    Within a few blocks, Jesus caught up to the man, Andron Gazarov, 33. They fought, and Jesus wrestled (抢夺) the young boy from Gazarov's arms. Then Gazarov threw himself onto the sidewalk. "He was yelling at me that the kid didn't belong to me. I was telling him the kid didn't belong to him," Jesus told the Argonaut.

    Minutes later, Los Angeles police officers arrived and arrested Gazarov, who was charged with kidnapping, attempted kidnapping, and attack. He faces up to 12 years in prison, if convicted (定罪). The kids, Brendan O'Brien, 6, and Grady O' Brien, 4, were unharmed.

    The next night, the boys' father, Tom O'Brien, went to the Taco stand to thank Jesus for his actions. He also started an online fund to help Jesus pay the medical expenses for his special-needs daughter. By May, more than $27,000 had been raised.

    Buying new clothes isn't an easy matter for everyone, here are some tips(建议) for you .When you want to go shopping, decide how much money you can spend on new clothes. Think about the kind of clothes you really need. Then look for those clothes you really need. Then look for those clothes on sale.

    There are labels(标签) inside all new clothes. The labels tell you how to take care of your clothes. The label for a shirt may tell you to wash it in warm water. A sweater label may tell you to wash in cold water. The label on a coat may say "dry clean only", for washing may ruin this coat. If you do as the directions(说明)on the label, you can keep your clothes looking their best for a long time.

    Many clothes today must be dry cleaned. Dry cleaning is expensive. When buying new clothes, check to see if they will need to be dry cleaned. You will save money if you buy clothes that can be washed.

    You can save money if you buy clothes that are well-made. Well-made clothes last longer. They look good even after they have been washed many times. Clothes that cost more money are not necessarily better made. They do not always fit better. Sometimes less expensive clothes look and fit better than more expensive clothes.

    Three-day－old Oskar Lunde sleeps in a small bed at an Estonian(爱沙尼亚) hospital.

    Across the room, his father turns on a laptop computer. "Now we will register our child, "Andrei Lunde says as he lifts his identification card into the card reader. His wife, Olga, looks on. And just like that, Oskar is Estonia's newest citizen. No paper. No time spent standing in a line.

    Estonia has launched a project to make government administration completely digital. The goal is to reduce the size of the government work force, open up the decision-making process and fuel economic growth.

    Need medicine? Reach for a computer and send an email or text message to a doctor. Need help from the local government? Click on a link to the government websites…

    Estonia has created a system that supports electronic authentication(身份验证) and digital signatures. It provides paperless communications for both the government and private industry.

    However, there are a few things that one cannot do electronically in Estonia: marry, end a marriage or buy and sell property. That is only because the government has decided it is very important to show up in person for some big life events. When Estonia declared independence from the former Soviet Union in 1991, it had to build a new economy. Government leaders looked for an industry where the country could compete. They decided on information technology and the Internet.

    When the poor country needed to replace a 1930s phone system, former President Toomas Hendrik Ilves rejected the offer of a free analog(模拟) system from Finland and argued for a digital one.

    Last year, information and communications made up 5.9 percent of the economy. The government hopes to increase that figure with an "e-residency" program that lets businessmen around the world register their businesses in Estonia, thus gaining a presence in the European Union. More than 51, 000 people from 167 countries have registered at a cost of only 100 euros, or＄114 each.

    Measles (麻疹), which once killed 450 children each year and disabled even more, was nearly wiped out in the United States 14 years ago by the universal use of the MMR vaccine (疫苗). But the disease is making a comeback, caused by a growing anti-vaccine movement and misinformation that is spreading quickly. Already this year, 115 measles cases have been reported in the USA, compared with 189 for all of last year.

    The numbers might sound small, but they are the leading edge of a dangerous trend. When vaccination rates are very high, as they still are in the nation as a whole, everyone is protected. This is called "herd immunity", which protects the people who get hurt easily, including those who can't be vaccinated for medical reasons, babies too young to get vaccinated and people on whom the vaccine doesn't work.

    But herd immunity works only when nearly the whole herd joins in. When some refuse vaccination and seek a free ride, immunity breaks down and everyone is in even bigger danger. That's exactly what is happening in small neighborhoods around the country from Orange County, California, where 22 measles cases were reported this month, to Brooklyn, N.Y., where a 17-year-old caused an outbreak last year.

    The resistance to vaccine has continued for decades, and it is driven by a real but very small risk. Those who refuse to take that risk selfishly make others suffer.

    Making things worse are state laws that make it too easy to opt out (决定不参加) of what are supposed to be required vaccines for all children entering kindergarten. Seventeen states allow parents to get an exemption (豁免), sometimes just by signing a paper saying they personally object to a vaccine.

    Now, several states are moving to tighten laws by adding new regulations for opting out. But no one does enough to limit exemptions. Parents ought to be able to opt out only for limited medical or religious reasons. But personal opinions? Not good enough. Everyone enjoys the life-saving benefits vaccines provide, but they'll exist only as long as everyone shares in the risks.