Marineland Oceanarium

The world's first "oceanarium", Marineland opened in 1938 as an underwater motion picture studio.  Developed by Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney, Jr., of the prominent American family, Marineland was designed to permit moviemakers to create films of sea life in as controlled environs as possible.  The 1937 Oceanarium is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and was one of the leading Florida tourist attractions after World War II. The Oceanarium was originally built as the first underwater movie studio in the world.  It attracted film, television, and literary greats such as Johnny Weismuller, Lloyd Bridges, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, Ernest Hemingway and others.  The studio provided underwater facilities for such classics as The Creature from the Black Lagoon and Lloyd Bridges' Sea Hunt series.  Currently, much of the early underwater film and photographs taken at Marineland have been secured in a climate-controlled vault.  Unfortunately, this library has not been inventoried and no preservation techniques have been undertaken. These films and photographs are a significant part of Florida's early film making industry.

Marineland's architecture is distinctive, designed in the "Nautical Moderne" style. Form and function are blended with ocean themes.  For example, structures have broad, sweeping curves with marine elements incorporated, such as portholes for underwater viewing windows.  Public interest soon made Marineland one of the state's leading tourist attractions.  Here, for the first time people could view life as it exists below the water's surface.

Marineland's location was selected because it is near the Matanzas Inlet, and because the thread of land between the estuary and ocean is very narrow there.  Thus, animals could be readily transported (with minimal stress) from the ocean to the river and thence back to the viewing tanks. 

As an oceanarium, Marineland, unlike aquariums where species were segregated, replicated an ocean habitat where various marine species lived together.  Marineland was the first place where marine animals with entertaining skills (taught by humans) were exhibited.  Also the location of a major oceanic research effort, Marineland has served as a prototype for numerous oceanarium and marine museums throughout the world.  Marineland continues to function as an attraction and research facility. 

The Oceanarium offers you the opportunity to see and in some cases interact with the animals and fish. Research has been a focus of Marineland since its beginning, and this research continues today through the University of Florida's Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney Laboratory for Marine Biology and Medicine (Whitney Laboratory).

Whitney Laboratory has been involved in some of the earliest marine research in marine metabolism, chemosensory reception, reproductive biology and marine mammal studies, particularly biocommunication. The mission of Whitney Lab is to "use marine organisms in basic biological research; to apply, where possible, the novel results of this research to problems of human health, natural resources and the environment; to train future experimental biologists; and to contribute to public education and to the formulation of policy in basic research and marine science."

The Whitney Lab educates postdoctoral fellows, visiting scientists and graduate students, in addition to funding an International Program and a Latin-American Exchange Program. The Lab provides research-training opportunities for undergraduates from all over the country and teachers and pre-collegiate minority students from the surrounding county schools. Local schools participate each month in the popular "Day at the Whitney" program and "The Traveling Zoo" program. Free public lectures are given monthly from September to June on such topics as the coastal scrub, the maritime hammock, the estuary, animal and plant species, right whale migration offshore, and other similar activities. The Lab is planning to construct a Center for Marine Studies and a Center for Marine Animal Health.

The Florida Sea Grant College has an extension facility in Marineland, the Marine Education Center. This agency administers and aids marine-related research conducted by investigators throughout the State University System. Major activities include research, technology transfer, advisory services, and education. Major efforts center on two broad categories of research: coastal processes and development and living marine resources.