$content.slug

On the homepage

Joe Mauer

Out There

NewsBreak

NewsBreak Extra: Total music weekend

Tour de France

A new leader in yellow

Allan Maguire, aquarium supervisor at the Minnesota Zoo, talks about the challenges of maintaining healthy aquatic homes for some of the zoo's most popular residents.

Allan Maguire: The Wizard of Zoo

The Wizard of the Minnesota Zoo

By KAREN YOUSO, Star Tribune

Last update: January 06, 2009

There's a place in Minnesota where temperatures don't tumble, snow doesn't fly and water never seizes into ice. It's a magical realm of shimmery blue water where dolphins dance, sharks prowl and otters wriggle and play: the Minnesota Zoo.

In charge of the magic is aquarium supervisor Allan Maguire, a tall, thin and bespectacled man who works out of sight in a squat concrete building filled with pipes, pumps and tanks. He takes Minnesota groundwater, adds a dash of "Instant Ocean," turns the crank and -- presto -- makes a home where exotic ocean fish thrive. With tons of pickling salt from Cargill, he conjures up a different water fit not for fish, but for mammals of the seas.

"This is where Minnesota connects with the ocean," Maguire says with pride.

Read more...

Water is needed in vast amounts to keep the animals and plants thriving at the Minnesota Zoo. It starts in aquifers deep under the city of Apple Valley and ends with Allan Maguire who adds a dash of "Instant Ocean," turns the crank and -- presto -- makes a home where exotic ocean fish and mammals thrive.

Interactive graphic: Follow the water

The zoo’s giant water management system provides the distinctly different types of water needed for saltwater and freshwater mammals and fish, terrestrial animals and humans. And it must be done ecologically. Here’s a look at four of the biggest arteries of that system.