Yearning to Be a Bigger Fish : Museum: A waiting list for tours and a 50% increase in visitors over the past decade has led the Cabrillo Marine Aquarium to draft plans for expansion.

The Cabrillo Marine Aquarium could be called the halibut of the aquarium world.

An unassuming, Average Joe of a fish, the halibut in its ocean habitat is unobtrusive, often lying quietly on the ocean floor, camouflaged by sand, while fish such as the garibaldi and blue-banded goby use their bright, colorful bodies to advertise their presence.

The Cabrillo Marine Aquarium in San Pedro has maintained a similarly low-profile, albeit successful, existence for nearly 60 years.

The aquarium, run by the Los Angeles Recreation and Parks Department, has no budget for marketing so many people outside the harbor area don’t even know it’s there.

Until a couple of months ago, when Cabrillo dropped museum from its name in favor of aquarium, the only public aquarium between Monterey Bay and La Jolla seemed to even camouflage itself.

Still, the aquarium dedicated to Southern California marine life managed to draw more than 360,000 visitors last year to its light gray, boxy digs, where they viewed the only live Pacific angel sharks in captivity, tickled sea urchins and listened to the snorting sounds of grazing snails.

To meet the growing demand for marine life education, demonstrated by the waiting list for tours and a 50% increase in visitors over the past decade, and to expand its acclaimed exhibits and programs, supporters have drafted a long-range plan that would triple the aquarium in size. That is, if the aquarium can come up with the money through public grants and loans and private donations.

Among the envisioned additions is a 300,000-gallon, ring-shaped aquarium in which visitors could swim, much like the “Baja Reef” exhibit at the now-defunct Marineland of Rancho Palos Verdes.

“Aquariums are really the hot items worldwide, because the ocean is still a mysterious realm for lots of people,” said aquarium director Susanne Lawrenz-Miller. “People’s imaginations are fired up by the idea of ocean animals.”

That includes Los Angeles City Councilman Rudy L. Svorinich Jr., who represents San Pedro and whose plan to build a major, tourist-attraction aquarium in the area has left Cabrillo enthusiasts wondering about the fate of the facility.

Svorinich made no mention of Cabrillo when he first unveiled his idea, but he has invited Cabrillo officials to join an advisory panel for the project.

In an interview this week, Svorinich sought to clarify his proposal, saying that he envisioned his new aquarium existing hand-in-hand with Cabrillo.

The larger aquarium would be a revenue-producing, world-class facility, he said, while Cabrillo would serve as an auxiliary site where visitors, particularly children, could see creatures up close and touch them.

“I think it’d be a fantastic combination,” he said. “Students can go to get a more hands-on, intimate education (at Cabrillo).”

Indeed, Cabrillo is particularly popular among schoolchildren, who account for one-third of the annual visitors and come from as far as Nevada and Arizona for the free educational tours offered to school groups. So popular are the free tours that the waiting list numbers more than 100.

An additional 60,000 people participated last year in the aquarium’s off-site programs, which include whale watching and “grunion run” excursions.

Much of Cabrillo’s popularity is owed to its close-up look at marine life afforded by the smaller exhibits and lack of crowds.

Jeff Tritel, a Northern California tourist who took his family to the aquarium on a recent Sunday afternoon, was awed.

“You’ve got gems of experience here,” said Tritel, as he peered nose-to-glass into a tank where a mantis shrimp, cozy in a sand burrow, gathered rocks and shells.

Although accustomed to the world-renowned Monterey Bay Aquarium that is 10 times the size of Cabrillo, Tritel nonetheless spoke enthusiastically about the San Pedro facility, located at 3720 Stephen White Drive.

“It’s got the most active little octopus I’ve ever seen,” he said.

With 20,000 square feet of interior space, Cabrillo has 35 aquariums ranging in size from 100 to 1,500 gallons. There is also a 1,500-square-foot laboratory classroom for workshops and a 300-seat auditorium for lectures and multimedia presentations.

The aquariums and interpretive displays housed in the 6,700-square-foot exhibit hall explain Southern California marine life in three major environments: rocky shores; sand and mud, and open ocean. The aquarium is the only one in the world with live Pacific angel sharks and also boasts a “jellyfish farm” of translucent creatures.

Probably the most popular attraction is the 5,000-gallon outdoor “Touch Tank,” which allows visitors to feel a variety of animals common to tide pools.

At a display titled “Grazers and Browsers,” a couple of young girls giggled as they listened to a recording of snails grazing. “Sounds like a pig,” said one girl.

The aquarium is staffed by 25 full-time and part-time employees with help from about 450 volunteers. The staff, most of whom are marine biologists, do everything from collecting kelp and crabs in the ocean to feeding the animals and teaching classes. Staff members also conduct limited research, such as studies of local tide pools.

The city provides $1.5 million to run the facility. About $150,000 of the budget is raised by fees charged to school groups and individuals for seminars.

Friends of Cabrillo Marine Aquarium, a nonprofit support group, raises an additional $150,000 in donations annually, according to Lawrenz-Miller.

No admission fee is charged at the aquarium, but Lawrenz-Miller said the facility will probably begin collecting one to help cover costs if it expands.

A general long-range plan drafted in 1990 by a group of community supporters and Cabrillo staff calls for the addition of 40,000 square feet, at an estimated cost of $20 million. Besides a swim-through aquarium, the plan includes a 200,000-gallon outdoor kelp tank; a live shorebird exhibit; a “Discovery Center” of interactive displays, and an outdoor area where large groups could gather or performances could be held.

A new 10,000-square-foot building located north of the existing facility would house the Marineland-like aquarium in which visitors could swim, Discovery Center and visiting exhibits, according to the plan. The stage area would include a pool for animals and about 200 audience seats.

The Cabrillo staff is developing a more detailed master plan from the 1990 document and the support group is seeking ways to raise money for the project.

The expanded aquarium would be a far cry from its beginnings in 1935 in a vacant bath house, where a Venice Beach lifeguard laid out his collection of shells and other local specimens on a table.

The city of Los Angeles appointed a retired dentist, William Lloyd, as the first director of the museum. Assisted by volunteers and donors, Lloyd and a handful of staff continued to collect local and foreign specimens.

Under second director John M. Olguin, who oversaw the facility from the 1950s to the early 1970s, the museum developed its educational programs and organized public gatherings to watch whales migrate and grunion spawn on local beaches.

In the 1970s, after the city obtained state and federal grants to build a larger museum, Lawrenz-Miller joined the staff and shifted the focus to the local marine environment and aquarium displays. The new facility opened in 1981 and was designed to complement Marineland, Lawrenz-Miller said. But the aquatic park’s 1987 closure left Cabrillo as the only public aquarium in the county.

Lawrenz-Miller said she hopes Svorinich is right when he says a new major aquarium could ultimately provide the revenue and publicity that would raise the profile of an expanded Cabrillo.

“Now, since we want to grow, we need to make more people aware of us, particularly when we feel like we might be overlooked,” she said.