Chicago's Magnificent Museums: Shedd Aquarium behind-the-scenes-look

CHICAGO (WLS) -- Friday we start a new series - Chicago's Magnificent Museums!

Roz Varon is getting a behind-the-scenes look at the cultural gems that make up the museum campus and what makes them so special! Friday, she looks at the Shedd Aquarium.

One of the things that makes the Shedd so special is its mission - Sparking compassion, curiosity and conservation for the aquatic animal world. We experienced all three in our mission to see what it takes to run this world class aquarium!

The Shedd Aquarium opened in 1930. With the additions of the Oceanarium in 1991 and Wild Reef in 2003. It's one of the largest aquariums in the world, with two million visitors each year!

"We have 32,000 animals, individuals and we have 1,500 species!" Shedd public relations manager Kaylee Ciocci.

There are two kitchens that prepare food for those thousands of marine animals

"Our animal that eats the most food here is our beluga whales and they on average can eat 50 pounds of seafood a day," Sheri Hendricks, Shedd supervisor of cetaceans, said, "Our whale and dolphins eat a variety of schooling fish, so they eat herring, capelin, squid and menhaden... This is our freezer...This holds anywhere from three to four months' worth of food, we have thousands of pounds of fish in here!"

We met the belugas, during an engagement session. At 2300 pounds, Aurek is the largest animal at the Shedd.

"This is one of the most important reasons we train these animals is to be able to have them participate in their own health care," Hendricks said. "You're going to help me give him a dental exam, touch his teeth, touch his tongue moving forward there."

At the Wild Reef shark habitat, we learned about an incredible conservation program of the zebra shark.

"This is really the first project of its kind that is allowing us to reintroduce this species back into its native habitat," Lisa Watson, assistant director of Shedd animal operations and habitats. "Unfortunately in parts of Indonesia the populations have declined to the point of they're almost extinct. This is an egg laying species and we have one right here that has a developing embryo...If you see at the top, that wiggling around in there, that is a developing zebra shark!"

The fertile eggs are carefully shipped to the hatchery in Raja Ampat, where the trained staff can hatch them, rear them and release the pups to a sea pen in the ocean.

"We're trying to set them up for success so when we release them, they've got the tools that they need," Watson said.

The first batch of shark pups were recently released; they're currently being monitored in this amazing conservation effort at the Shedd!