Audubon Aquarium of the Americas

The aquarium sits at the foot of Canal Street on the riverfront, where ships once pulled up to an old wharf to load cargo. It opened September 1, 1990, run by the Audubon Nature Institute as part of a network that includes the zoo and a coastal research station. After a $41 million renovation that merged the Insectarium into the building, it reopened in June 2023 with 10,000 animals representing 530 species.

The Gulf of Mexico exhibit is a 400,000-gallon tank, seventeen feet deep, full of sharks, sea turtles, and stingrays. The Caribbean reef tunnel is thirty feet of clear acrylic through 132,000 gallons — tarpon and angelfish overhead while you walk through. The Amazon exhibit is a glass cylinder that works as a climate-controlled greenhouse, humid enough to feel accurate: macaws, piranhas, an anaconda, freshwater stingrays. The Mississippi River gallery holds paddlefish, catfish, owls, and a leucistic white alligator.

Hurricane Katrina hit in August 2005. The building survived the storm and sat above the flooding, but the electricity failed and the backup generators couldn't sustain the life support systems. Staff evacuated and returned four days later to find most of the 10,000 fish dead. The aquarium reopened May 26, 2006. Since then the Gulf of Mexico tank has been redesigned to simulate ocean life below an oil rig platform.

On August 7, 2002, a catwalk above the shark tank collapsed during a tour. Ten visitors fell into the tank. All were rescued within fifteen minutes with minor injuries.

It's at 1 Canal Street, steps from the French Quarter, open daily.