U.S. aquarium directory: rescue and conservation programs
Most aquarium listings stop at the address and ticket price. This directory records what 16 AZA-accredited aquariums and zoos do for marine animals: who they rescue, how they care for them, and the conservation work they fund.
Every aquarium here appears on the list of accredited institutions published by the Association of Zoos & Aquariums (September 2026). Each fact comes from the aquarium's own published pages, and every number carries the year it was reported.
Northeast and Mid-Atlantic
New England Aquarium
Boston, Massachusetts · AZA-accredited
Animals this aquarium helps
Cold-stunned Kemp's ridley, green and loggerhead sea turtles.
Rescue and rehabilitation program
Its Sea Turtle Hospital at the Quincy Animal Care Center treats sea turtles stranded by cold water on Cape Cod, a partnership with Mass Audubon's Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary that has run for more than 35 years. The hospital admitted 473 turtles in 2025, and close to 85% of its turtle patients are released back into the ocean.
Conservation work
Its Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life studies sea turtles and right whales. In 2023 the team tagged 14 rehabilitated sea turtles to follow them after release.
Source: New England Aquarium, Sea Turtle Rescue and Rehabilitation; New England Aquarium, 2023 Annual Report.
Mystic Aquarium
Mystic, Connecticut · AZA-accredited
Animals this aquarium helps
Mostly seals (harbor, gray, harp and occasionally hooded), plus other stranded marine mammals and sea turtles.
Rescue and rehabilitation program
Its Animal Rescue Program has rescued, rehabilitated and released sick, injured and stranded marine animals since 1975, along 1,000 miles of coastline in Connecticut, Rhode Island and Fishers Island, New York. The team works with NOAA Fisheries and answers an average of 150 hotline calls a year.
Conservation work
Takes part in AZA's SAFE: Saving Animals From Extinction programs for African penguins, coral reefs, sea turtles, and sharks and rays, and studies beluga whale health.
Harbor, gray, harp and hooded seals; Kemp's ridley, green and loggerhead sea turtles. It has also returned a harbor porpoise, a pygmy sperm whale and a manatee to the wild.
Rescue and rehabilitation program
National Aquarium Animal Rescue has rescued and rehabilitated endangered and protected marine species since 1991. It holds NOAA and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service permits to respond to sick and injured sea turtles and marine mammals along Maryland's 3,190 miles of coastline, and has run a Stranding Response Center in Ocean City since 2023.
Conservation work
Works year-round with the Greater Atlantic Region Stranding Network, and has returned hundreds of rehabilitated animals to their natural habitats since 1991.
Loggerhead, green and Kemp's ridley sea turtles, the most common species in North Carolina.
Rescue and rehabilitation program
Its Sea Turtle Assistance and Rehabilitation (STAR) Center, built in 2014, treats cold-stunned and injured turtles with partners such as the Network for Endangered Sea Turtles. In a single week of December 2024, 553 cold-stunned sea turtles were delivered to the aquarium. By December 17 it had received 576 and released 399.
Conservation work
Works under a N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission sea turtle permit alongside Cape Hatteras National Seashore and U.S. Coast Guard stations. Every sea turtle it treats is protected by the Endangered Species Act.
Source: North Carolina Aquariums, 399 Sea Turtles Rescued, Rehabilitated, and Released Thanks to Community Partnerships (2024); North Carolina Aquarium on Roanoke Island, About.
South Carolina Aquarium
Charleston, South Carolina · AZA-accredited
Animals this aquarium helps
Sea turtles, including loggerheads, greens and Kemp's ridleys.
Rescue and rehabilitation program
Its Sea Turtle Care Center is a working hospital. With the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources, the aquarium rescues, rehabilitates and releases dozens of sea turtles each year that arrive with injuries and illness.
Conservation work
Part of AZA's Sea Turtle SAFE program, with citizen science projects (Sea Turtle Guardian and Tangled in Trash) and work on plastic pollution and sustainable seafood.
Source: South Carolina Aquarium, Conservation; South Carolina Aquarium, Sea Turtle Care Center.
Georgia Aquarium
Atlanta, Georgia · AZA-accredited
Animals this aquarium helps
Cold-stunned loggerhead and Kemp's ridley sea turtles, and manatees.
Rescue and rehabilitation program
The aquarium has taken in over 40 cold-stunned sea turtles in the past five years (2025) and keeps space to rehabilitate loggerheads and return them to the wild. As a Manatee Rescue & Rehabilitation Partnership member it also cares for manatees: one, Lorenzo, arrived weighing under 300 pounds and was released in February 2026 at 639 pounds.
Conservation work
Researches whale sharks, bottlenose dolphins, African penguins, manta rays, corals, belugas, manatees and sea lions, and studies algal toxins in Arctic walruses.
Source: Georgia Aquarium, Conservation Works When We Work Together (2025); Georgia Aquarium, Manatee Rehabilitation: From Rescue to Release (2026).
Florida
SeaWorld Orlando
Orlando, Florida · AZA-accredited
Animals this aquarium helps
Manatees, sea turtles, birds, dolphins and other marine mammals.
Rescue and rehabilitation program
One of the critical care facilities for manatees in Florida. The most serious cases are treated in its medical pools before the Manatee Rescue & Rehabilitation Partnership moves recovering manatees to other facilities. SeaWorld has rescued more than 670 manatees over its history (2018). In 2016 the Orlando rescue team answered 701 calls and cared for 32 manatees, 82 sea turtles and reptiles, 8 cetaceans and 579 birds.
Conservation work
The SeaWorld Conservation Fund, set up in 2003, has given more than $20 million to nearly 1,400 organizations (2026).
Sea turtles, including turtles stunned by cold water.
Rescue and rehabilitation program
Its Sea Turtle Rehabilitation Center opened in January 2019 at the Apollo Beach Conservation Campus, with a veterinary hospital and 12 recovery pools. Annual turtle intakes have grown 330% since opening, it took in 75 patients in 2025, and it has cared for more than 200 turtles in all (January 2026).
Conservation work
Its Coral Conservation & Research Center, opened in March 2024, has spawned 14 coral species. In December 2021 the aquarium reared and released nearly 200 long-spined sea urchins off the Florida coast.
Source: The Florida Aquarium, Honored as Lightning Community Hero for Sea Turtle Conservation Program (2026); The Florida Aquarium, Our Conservation Campus; About Us.
Mote Marine Laboratory & Aquarium
Sarasota, Florida · AZA-accredited
Animals this aquarium helps
Sea turtles, dolphins and whales, and manatees.
Rescue and rehabilitation program
Its Stranding Investigations Program responds 24 hours a day to sick, injured and dead marine mammals and sea turtles in Southwest Florida, mainly Sarasota and Manatee counties, and has recovered more than 2,000 turtles since 2003. Mote runs a Sea Turtle Rehabilitation Hospital and a Dolphin and Whale Hospital, and in May 2025 it became a federally designated secondary care facility for rescued manatees.
Conservation work
Necropsies of stranded animals help explain causes of death, including vessel strikes. Its goal for every patient is a return to the ocean.
Source: Mote Marine Laboratory & Aquarium, Stranding Investigations; Mote, Federal Designation as a Secondary Care Rehabilitation Facility for Rescued Manatees (2025).
Gulf Coast
Audubon Aquarium
New Orleans, Louisiana · AZA-accredited
Animals this aquarium helps
Bottlenose dolphins; green, hawksbill, Kemp's ridley, leatherback and loggerhead sea turtles; West Indian manatees.
Rescue and rehabilitation program
Audubon Aquarium Rescue is the only group in Louisiana responsible for rehabilitating live marine mammals and sea turtles, authorized by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and NOAA. In 2023 it released nine Kemp's ridley sea turtles that had been stunned by cold water in Massachusetts.
Conservation work
Serves as NOAA Fisheries' main stranding response partner for marine mammals and sea turtles in Louisiana (2023), and funds dolphin protection through its Protect Wild Dolphins license plate.
Source: Audubon Nature Institute, Audubon Aquarium Rescue; Audubon Coastal Wildlife Network Releases Nine Kemp's Ridley Sea Turtles (2023).
Texas State Aquarium
Corpus Christi, Texas · AZA-accredited
Animals this aquarium helps
Marine mammals, manatees, sea turtles, raptors and shorebirds.
Rescue and rehabilitation program
The Port Corpus Christi Center for Wildlife Rescue is the largest coastal wildlife rescue facility in Texas and the only rescue program in the state permitted to receive marine mammals, manatees, sea turtles and birds. Since 1995 the aquarium has admitted over 8,700 animals and released over 4,000.
Conservation work
Endangered species are a large share of the work: 2,855 of the animals admitted since 1995 were endangered. The center also has the only CAT scanner in Texas used just for wildlife.
Source: Texas State Aquarium, Wildlife Rescue Press Packet.
Midwest
Columbus Zoo and Aquarium
Powell, Ohio · AZA-accredited
Animals this aquarium helps
West Indian manatees.
Rescue and rehabilitation program
A Manatee Rescue & Rehabilitation Partnership member since 1999 and a second-stage rehabilitation facility. Manatees live in its 300,000-gallon Manatee Coast pool until they are ready to return to Florida waters. In 2019 it welcomed its 30th and 31st manatees.
Conservation work
Contributes $4 million a year in privately raised funds to conservation projects worldwide (2019), including field work for three of the four living manatee species.
Source: Columbus Zoo and Aquarium, Manatee Rescue and Rehabilitation Partnership; Columbus Zoo and Aquarium Welcomes Two Orphaned Manatees (2019).
Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden
Cincinnati, Ohio · AZA-accredited
Animals this aquarium helps
Manatees, cared for at its Manatee Springs habitat.
Rescue and rehabilitation program
Manatees rescued in Florida by FWC and partners recover at Manatee Springs before going home. The zoo has rehabilitated 35 manatees since 1999, and three of them went back to Florida waters in February 2026 as part of a release of more than 20 manatees.
Conservation work
Known for protecting and breeding endangered animals and plants, with research and conservation projects around the world.
Source: Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden, Mass Manatee Release Includes Three Former Cincinnati Zoo Residents (2026).
West Coast and Alaska
Monterey Bay Aquarium
Monterey, California · AZA-accredited
Animals this aquarium helps
Southern sea otters, both stranded adults and orphaned pups.
Rescue and rehabilitation program
Its Sea Otter Program has cared for more than 1,000 stranded sea otters over 40 years. Since 2001 it has paired orphaned pups with exhibit otters that raise them as surrogate mothers, and 84 pups have been raised this way. Nearly 300 otters have been released back to the wild (2025).
Conservation work
Between 2001 and 2016 it released 37 surrogate-raised otters in Elkhorn Slough, and those otters and their offspring accounted for more than half of that area's population growth. Its Seafood Watch program has guided sustainable seafood choices since 1999.
Source: Monterey Bay Aquarium, Sea Otter Recovery Program; A History of Our Sea Otter Program; Our History.
Oregon Coast Aquarium
Newport, Oregon · AZA-accredited
Animals this aquarium helps
Pacific green and olive ridley sea turtles, seabirds and shorebirds, including endangered snowy plovers.
Rescue and rehabilitation program
It is one of three wildlife rehabilitation facilities in the Pacific Northwest, and the only one in Oregon, authorized by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to care for endangered marine life. Sea turtles that strand in winter are treated with the Oregon Marine Mammal Stranding Network, and staff free birds tangled in fishing line and plastic.
Conservation work
Surveys sevengill sharks with AZA partners, treats sea star wasting disease and monitors sunflower stars, and serves as the official dive team for the Oregon Marine Reserve Program.
Source: Oregon Coast Aquarium, Animal Rehabilitation; Conservation Efforts at the Aquarium and Beyond.
Alaska SeaLife Center
Seward, Alaska · AZA-accredited
Animals this aquarium helps
Harbor, ringed, spotted and bearded seals, northern fur seals, sea otters, walruses, beluga whales and seabirds.
Rescue and rehabilitation program
Its Wildlife Response Program answers calls about abandoned, stranded and injured marine wildlife across Alaska. It is the only permanent marine mammal rescue and rehabilitation facility in the state, working under NOAA and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service permits.
Conservation work
Since opening in 1998 its scientists have published close to 400 journal articles, with long-running work on Steller sea lions, harbor seals, sea otters and eiders.
Source: Alaska SeaLife Center, About Us; Wildlife Response Overview; Science and Research Overview.
How to read each aquarium entry
Every listing answers the same three questions, so two aquariums are easy to compare.
Animals this aquarium helps
The species the aquarium rescues, rehabilitates or protects, such as sea turtles, seals or manatees.
Rescue and rehabilitation program
What the aquarium actually does when an injured or stranded animal comes in, and whether animals are released.
Conservation work
The field projects and research the aquarium supports, in the wild and on site.
Check the myths before your next visit
Five common aquarium myths, each checked against the research.
