National Aquarium

Fourteen-year-old Caitlyn Fernandes of Dayton has dreams of one day being an actress, but when she landed a role in a television special that will air this week on Maryland Public Television, it wasn't the bright lights that attracted her attention. It was the dolphins. Filming for the show, "The Great Aquarium Treasure Hunt," took place after hours over several days at the National Aquarium in Baltimore . For the Glenelg High School freshman, it was a dream come true. "I'm really into animals, so seeing all of the aquatic life was my favorite part," she said.

An emaciated harbor seal pup found stranded on an Ocean City beach just before Saturday's northeaster was fighting for its life today at the National Aquarium in Baltimore."

NOT LONG AGO, Ocean City could wave "hello" on Memorial Day, count the receipts all summer and, on Labor Day, ask the last visitor heading west to please turn out the lights.No longer. The tourism industry has become hugely competitive and immensely lucrative, with states investing millions in marketing. Gov. Parris N. Glendening hopes to double Maryland's tourism economy, to $10 billion, by the year 2000. Few locations are as integral to that goal as Ocean City.The National Aquarium in Baltimore, another major tourist draw, recently proposed building a satellite facility in Ocean City.

There was good news and bad news yesterday involving some of Maryland's most closely watched exotic animals. The bad news was the death of a rare, injured whooping crane brought last month for treatment to the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center. The good news is that Bob, a 26-year-old bottlenose dolphin brought to Baltimore last year on loan from Disney's Living Seas exhibit in Orlando, continues to improve after falling critically ill at the National Aquarium. The male crane was shot by hunters in Kansas on Nov. 6 as it was traveling with a flock of about 200 birds that migrate each year between Wood Buffalo National Park in Canada and wintering grounds 2,700 miles away on the Texas Gulf Coast.

A marine obstetrician in a wetsuit, veterinarian Ian Walker sits quietly beside the dolphin pool at the National Aquarium in Baltimore and gently maneuvers his ultrasound probe on the belly of his patient. The expectant mom is Shiloh, a 21-year-old Atlantic bottlenose dolphin. She floats patiently on her side at the pool's edge, while a ghostly image of her healthy calf appears on a video screen at Walker's elbow. As the aquarium's Marine Mammal Pavilion turns 10 years old today, Shiloh is one of three female dolphins that are expecting.

The beauty of the underwater world, from the vibrant color of fish to their swift glide through the water, can now be experienced without seeing a thing. The first large group of visually impaired children took an audio tour of the National Aquarium in Baltimore yesterday designed specifically for them - an effort to open the popular tourist attraction to those without sight. "Through accessible programs like this, it really opens up museums to other people," said Dale Otto, president of Columbia Lighthouse for the Blind and a blind man who after nine years in Baltimore had never visited the aquarium.

Since it opened 21 years ago, the National Aquarium in Baltimore has explored the "world of water" from a fundamentally global perspective, treating visitors to re-creations of such exotic spots as an Amazon rain forest, an Atlantic coral reef and, soon, the Australian Outback. Now a new waterfront project planned by the aquarium board promises to take the institution in a different direction, focusing on local habitats rather than faraway climes. It also has the potential to give back to the community - and particularly, the local waterfront - in ways the original facility never could.

WHEN IT'S TIME for Bill Band to feed the fishies, he does more than sprinkle a pinch of dried shrimp flakes on top of the water.Like the others who participate in the National Aquarium's volunteer diver program, Band literally submerges himself in his work.Struggling into a wetsuit, he hoists a vest and air tank onto his back and, with a plastic container of raw, smelly fish rations in one hand, scrambles feet first down a ladder into the cool waters of the aquarium's Atlantic Coral Reef Exhibit.

After their breakout attempt was foiled, four aging seals from the National Aquarium in Baltimore were flown out of town yesterday to spend the rest of their days in New Mexico. Gray seals Ike, 30, and Lady, 28, and harbor seals Danny, 25 and Luciver, 22, arrived safely in Albuquerque and splashed into their spacious new pool at the Rio Grande Zoo about 3 p.m. yesterday, eight hours after they left Pier 3 in Baltimore. "They're doing very well, and we are jubilant because we had anticipated there may be some problems, because the seals are elderly and they had occupied this pool for so long," said Joseph L. Geraci, the aquarium's director of biological programs.

A marine biologist for the National Aquarium will scan the waters around Rock Creek in northeast Anne Arundel County today, searching for Chessie, the manatee that first wandered into the Chesapeake Bay in 1994.Two people reported seeing the 10-foot, 1,500-pound sea cow Monday in the Patapsco River tributary.Dave Scofield, the marine biologist, said yesterday that the reports, while unconfirmed, are consistent with the profile of Chessie.Both callers described seeing round swirls about the diameter of a bushelbasket on the surface of the water, said Scofield.