Mississippi

I went the the Mississippi River Museum the other day with my mom, it was soo cool. The have a ton of indian (yeah I'm not politically correct boohoo) artifacts and models and parts of old steamboats. My favorite parts were the tanks with real animals in them.

There was a saltwater tank (kinda doesn't make sense since it's supposed to be all about the river, but whatevs) with a hugee octopus, sea stars and cucumbers, anenomes, cute fish and corals.

Sea Squid- excuse the crappy quality, this is a phone picture.

The octopus has been a big attraction for the museum since they're such odd creatures. Sadly, this is the museum's second octopus-the first one died shortly after it was introduced to the tank because of water temperature issues.

I always have mixed feelings about zoos and aquariums, taking animals from their natural habitats and putting them in cages and tanks just for human entertainment doesn't seem right. At least the river museum does actually offer a lot of information to its visitors. I feel like zoos aren't so educational. My mom and I loved looking at the animals, but since we've both lived in Dubuque all our lives and been on the river too many times to count, the fish tanks didn't really show us anything new. It would probably be cooler for people from further away.

Anyways, I hope someday zoos and aquariums will be obsolete. People's time and money could be spent much more wisely on habitat restoration efforts and supporting local wildlife organizations (DNR, US Fish & Wildlife Service) rather than maintaining captive habitats.

On another note, I was a little awestruck upon viewing a tank with the river's most popular game fish: catfish, northern pike, bass, carps (ew) etc. Fish have indeterminate growth, meaning they grow throughout their ENTIRE lives, so crazy. Some turtles and other herptiles also share this quality. So some of these fish are like six or seven feet long! I don't even know how much they would weigh...some were probably near 300 lbs, just guessing.

Me with the gigantic catfish. 

I would recommend anyone visiting Dubuque to go to this museum, it's so informative and interesting. I think everyone in Dubuque should visit too, though I think people here already do have a deep (puns intended) appreciation for the river.

I'll leave you with this, some translations of the Ioway tribe:

Iowa- means beautiful
Chicago- means place of the skunk

LOL