Puget Sound Estuarium

Help us Fund Housing Improvements for our Estuary Ambassadors

The Puget Sound Estuarium is a marine life discovery center featuring aquariums, interactive activities, and interpretive exhibits located in downtown Olympia, WA. Outside our facility, we can be found on local docks and beaches connecting people of all ages to our delicate and vibrant estuarine ecosystem. The Estuarium also provides K-12 field trips to local schools to encourage environmental stewardship early on.

The Puget Sound is facing many threats to its health, and it is more crucial than ever to provide quality education to our local students and community members about what makes this ecosystem so unique. So we're turning our aquariums into featured habitats! Not only will these habitats showcase local marine life as estuary ambassadors, but also how each habitat is important for the overall health of Puget Sound. When you donate to the Estuarium you ensure that we can continue to connect people to the estuary environment as a whole, and inspire them to promote ongoing conservation and restoration of Puget Sound.

Your support will allow us to continue to improve our habitats to showcase the unique beauty and diversity that can be found in Puget Sound, the deepest estuary in the United States!

Our Estuary Habitats

Freshwater Habitat – You can't have an estuary without the introduction of freshwater! Plus you get an extra addition of nutrients from rivers. Our freshwater habitat gives you a glimpse into the lives of rough-skinned newts and a northern red-legged frog.

Intertidal Habitat - This is where estuary diversity shines! In the intertidal zone animals spend half their time submerged at high tide where they can forage for food and escape from predators. When the water recedes at low tide they are exposed to the elements, predation from land and sky animals, and risk drying out before the tide returns. Our intertidal habitat showcases green urchins, painted anemones, hermit crabs, and chitons.

Eelgrass Habitat - It looks like seaweed, but eelgrass is a flowering plant that lives is saltwater. This habitat provides shelter to juvenile fish and crustaceans. It's a nursery for many species, including Pacific Herring, who lay their eggs on eelgrass. From filtering run off to stabilizing beach erosion these plants are vital for our estuary. Our eelgrass habitat is a nursey for shiner perch, dock shrimp, three-spined stickleback, and mottled sea stars.

Subtidal Habitat - Over 15,000 years ago a glacier carved out Puget Sound, creating a max depth of 930 feet north of Seattle. The subtidal zone that never gets exposed at low tide allows many animals to grow large and live long. Sea stars that can be over 3 feet in diameter, rockfish that can live over 200 years old. Our subtidal habitat is home to purple sea stars, mottled sea stars, leather sea stars, California sea cucumbers, and a brown rockfish.

Shellfish Habitat – With Washington being the largest producer of shellfish in the nation, so this must be suitable habitat. Thanks to the influx of nutrients from both fresh and salt water, our filter feeding shellfish are thriving. They are also cleaning our waters, stabilizing shorelines, and their shells can become habitats for many other marine animals. In our shellfish habitat you'll find pacific oysters, plumose anemones, and white sea cucumbers filtering away.

*Coming Soon* Pier Habitat – Our very popular Pier Peer program is getting its own habitat at the Estuarium and you can help! This new habitat will replicate the view from under the dock. See crabs, shrimps, and fingers crossed some sea slugs!

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