I have been a Volunteer Guide at the Monterey Bay Aquarium for more than fifteen years. In that time a number of amusing incidents have occurred around me. Having recounted some of these to friends and acquaintances, it was suggested that they would be worth publishing.

I don't have enough stories, myself, to make up more than a few pages, so I'm asking for input from other docents and staff of any nature-related institutions. The sorts of things I'm interested in are people stories: interactions between staff and visitors; interactions between visitors and resident animals; unusual reactions of people to exhibits. They can be amusing, poignant or embarrassing.

Some examples:

It's late a summer Sunday afternoon. The Aquarium is nearly empty. A lone guide is cleaning up at the Touch Pool when he hears a young voice: "Lower, Dad, Lower. I almost touched one." The guide turns around and sees a VERY tall man holding his seven- or eight-year-old son by the ankles over the bat ray petting pool. "Just a little lower, Dad. There's one coming now."

It is possible to rent the Monterey Bay Aquarium, or part of it, for an hour or an evening or something in between; and you can get a catered dinner or snacks. And you can arrange for some of the residents to be fed, too; that is, have a diver enter the Kelp Forest exhibit and feed the fish, while a guide outside the exhibit narrates the proceedings.

One evening I had the opportunity to narrate such a feeding show for a large, fancy party.

The narration isn't a script that is read verbatim, but, rather a collection of ideas, some of which are included or omitted as the whimsy strikes the narrator. Being in an engineering career and impressed by big numbers, myself, I like to talk about the size of the exhibit: the depth of the water, the size and thickness of the large windows and the third of a million gallons of water it contains.

This particular evening I also mentioned the large pumps with which the water is drawn into the aquarium at about 2000 gallons per minute: "Being on a clean body of water, we can use the water from the bay directly, without treatment. However, in the case of an ecological catastrophe," I said, "we can close off the pumps and exist on the water already in the aquarium for up to eleven days..." At which point I remembered who my audience was: upper management of a large petroleum company.

One day a man wearing foul-weather gear approached the Information Desk and asked if he could make a donation to the Aquarium. He was told he could go in to the reception desk and he would be given a form, and he could write a check or make other arrangements.

"No," he said, "I mean this kind of donation." And from under his sou'wester he pulled a small leopard shark, still wiggling.

(Husbandry was called and the shark was taken to quarantine for treatment and eventually was put on exhibit.)

If you have any such stories, or know anyone who does, please send them to me. If you are planning to go to your favorite zoo, aquarium, museum or arboretum in the near future, take a copy of this along and give it to a staff member or volunteer.

I will probably edit the stories for readability or impact, but not for content. All stories will be accompanied by the authors' names and institutions, unless anonymity is requested.

I can't promise the completion of this project. I've never tried anything like this before. I may not get enough responses. I may be overwhelmed by it or other events. I may be unable to find a publisher. If the book is published, however, I pledge that at least thirty percent of any profits will be donated to nature-related organizations, such as the Nature Conservancy, World Wildlife Fund and/or the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

Please send contributions to:

( If you must send paper, please type since I often have trouble decyphering other people's handwriting.)