Two new nature attractions have opened in Albuquerque: the Albuquerque Aquarium and the Rio Grande Botanic Garden. The aquarium's exhibits reproduce aquatic environments along the Rio Grande, from its headwaters in southern Colorado to the Gulf of Mexico. The showpiece is a 285,000-gallon shark tank with 15 to 20 sharks and several other species of fish. A tank with several hundred tropical fish in an artificial coral reef depicts the Flower Garden Banks, the northernmost of the Gulf of Mexico's coral reef communities. Other exhibits, including a jetty tank that dramatizes unintended consequences of controlling beach erosion, show the human impact on the Texas coast.
The Rio Grande Botanic Garden showcases plants of the Southwest and other climates. Its 10,000-square-foot conservatory houses a desert collection, including unique species from Baja California as well as species native to Mediterranean climates, southern California and Australia. The design, planting scheme and decorative accents of a Spanish-Moorish Garden are adapted from a Spanish courtyard garden.