New York Aquarium’s Jon Dohlin: ‘It Takes More Than Hurricane Sandy to Get a Walrus to Even Blink’

When superstorm Sandy barreled up the East Coast with wind speeds nearing 100 miles per hour and a 12-foot storm surge, it could almost be called a nonevent for a certain population living just off the Coney Island boardwalk.

“Let me tell you something. It takes a lot more than Hurricane Sandy to get a walrus to even blink,” said Jon Forrest Dohlin of the New York Aquarium. “All the marine mammals are used to pretty extreme weather.”

The animals may have weathered the storm just fine, but it took a toll on the aquarium itself. More than a million gallons of seawater poured into the buildings, flooding the basement and exhibit areas with up to 4 feet of water.

When Sandy hit on the night of Oct. 29, 2012, it knocked out the aquarium’s power and heat, even the emergency generators, all located below ground in the basement. It was earlier this week, seven months later, that the aquarium reopened to the public.

“To see people lined up outside the aquarium 30 minutes before we opened was incredible,” said Dohlin, the director of the Brooklyn-based facility and a vice president at the Wildlife Conservation Society, which runs the aquarium.

It was the animals’ first interaction with visitors in several months.

“Marine mammals are curious, inquisitive animals,” said Dohlin. “They’re very intelligent. They knew something was up for the last seven months with no public interaction, no crowds. They really were focused on the fact that people were back. You could see them up at the glass interacting more. But interestingly enough, the penguins had a bit of a different experience. As crowds came up, they looked at each other and kind of said, ‘Who the heck is this?’ and headed toward the back.”

The penguins and all of the marine mammals were safe during Sandy. That includes Mitik, a baby walrus, which was rescued in Alaska and brought to the aquarium late last year.

“Mitik was great,” said Dohlin. “He weathered the storm fine. He’s still in our aquatic animal health center and still nursing, but we’re starting to wean him. His tusks are also starting to emerge.”

Dohlin said the walrus would be socialized with the adult female walruses later this season, and he should be on exhibit in the fall.

The aquarium did lose some freshwater fish and a couple of heavily loaded exhibits during Sandy. The staff stayed with the animals throughout the storm, and in the days after, even though 10 of them lost their own homes nearby.

“Resilience is a term that’s used a lot, both in terms of the community and the city,” said Dohlin. “Resilience is also a strong ecological term. One of the things we can learn is that there are natural ecosystem services that can help us deal with dynamic weather on the Eastern Seaboard.

“Superstorm Sandy was an anomaly, but we do know that sea level is rising which means every weather event is going to have a bigger impact than before.”