{"id":393408,"date":"2026-07-10T14:09:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-10T14:09:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/393408\/"},"modified":"2026-07-10T14:09:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-10T14:09:13","slug":"ucsds-birch-aquarium-drew-record-603670-guests-over-the-past-year-san-diego-union-tribune","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/393408\/","title":{"rendered":"UCSD\u2019s Birch Aquarium drew record 603,670 guests over the past year \u2013 San Diego Union-Tribune"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>UC San Diego\u2019s Birch Aquarium attracted a record 603,670 visitors during the fiscal year that ended on June 30, a figure more than 38,000 higher than the previous record, set two years ago.<\/p>\n<p>The aquarium attributes the boom, in part, to the popularity of the Living Seas Gallery, a new exhibit that features 38 habitats, including one that houses a giant Pacific octopus.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis record attendance is more than a milestone \u2014 it reflects our community\u2019s growing interest in the ocean and the vital role science plays in understanding and protecting it,\u201d Harry Helling, the aquarium\u2019s director, said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>The aquarium, a short distance from the Scripps Pier, is run by UCSD\u2019s Scripps Institution of Oceanography, which regularly makes its research part of the center\u2019s exhibits.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"UC San Diego\u2019s Birch Aquarium attracted a record 603,670 visitors during the fiscal year that ended on June&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":393409,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[7,643,930,23,100,74,84,76,75,645,1696],"class_list":["post-393408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-california","tag-environment","tag-la-jolla","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-county","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-science","tag-top-stories-sdut"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=393408"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393408\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/393409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=393408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=393408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=393408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}