Looking Back at New York Aquarium Memorabilia
The WCS Archives are home to photos, art, and memorabilia from throughout the history of the New York Aquarium and WCS’s zoo and field work. Below are two postcards from the collection that were circulated around 1906. Sand tiger sharks and sturgeon are species found in the New York seascape—16,000 square miles of ocean from Montauk, New York to Cape May, New Jersey. Aquarium scientists recently confirmed that Long Island’s Great South Bay is a critical nursery ground for sand tiger sharks, and provides juveniles with food and shelter each summer before their migration south in the fall.
New York Aquarium memorabilia postcards, circa 1906. Visit the WCS Archives’s digitized collection to view more historical New York Aquarium postcards.
Sand tigers will be one of several shark species featured in the upcoming Ocean Wonders: Sharks! exhibit, scheduled to open in 2018. “Canyon’s Edge” will depict a near-shore ecosystem at the edge of the Hudson Canyon, the largest underwater canyon off the US Atlantic Coast rivaling the scale of the Grand Canyon. Visitors will come nose-to-nose with sharks and other animals against the backdrop of a seemingly limitless ocean, where the edge of the continental shelf meets the steep slope of the canyon.
“Canyon’s Edge” from the upcoming Ocean Wonders: Sharks! exhibit.
