Clearwater Marine Aquarium

ABOUT THIS PLACE

The aquarium is a nonprofit founded in 1972, and it is a working animal hospital that the public is allowed into rather than a display collection. The building was a water treatment plant. Its purpose is rescuing, treating and releasing sick and injured marine animals, and every permanent resident is there because an injury or a developmental problem makes release impossible. Winter, a bottlenose dolphin rescued in 2005 after her tail was lost to a crab trap line, learned to swim with a prosthetic tail and became the subject of the 2011 film Dolphin Tale and its 2014 sequel, both partly shot here. She died in November 2021 aged sixteen. The aquarium now holds bottlenose and rough-toothed dolphins, sea turtles, manatees, river otters, sharks, rays and pelicans across seventeen exhibits and 59 species. A 2020 expansion tripled the dolphin habitat and added 103,000 square feet, and a manatee rehabilitation center opened in 2024