A Whale Of A Tale From Atlanta

About 85,000 fish from throughout the seven seas of the world have a spectacular new home in Atlanta with the grand opening of the world's largest aquarium. The Early Show national correspondent Tracy Smith went to Atlanta to be among the first to get up close and personal with some wild creatures.

The new 550,000-square foot Georgia Aquarium boasts 8 million gallons of water for its residents, which can be viewed behind 23-foot walls of glass. And you can do more than just stare. Kids — and grownups — can get their hands on stingrays and sharks without fear of getting stung or bitten.

On opening day, Nov. 23, one of the first kids to approach the aquarium's "touch tank" was asked what it felt like. "Slimy," was the succinct reply.

The driving force behind all this is Home Depot co-founder Bernie Marcus, who donated $250 million for the project. "The truth is, I wanted to do something for this city. Atlanta's been so good to us," he said.

The donation bought a sensational mix of the bizarre and exotic, fish from off the Georgia coast and species never before seen on this continent.

If you've dreamed of a seaside wedding, you can even get married at the aquarium, in front of the beluga whale's window. But the centerpiece is the big tank which contains two gigantic whale sharks, the only ones in this hemisphere. Their names are Ralph and Norton.

Ray Davis, vice president of the aquarium, says Ralph and Norton, both juveniles, will eventually grow to about 45 feet—the size of a school bus. He assures us that they are well fed, and in any case they prefer plankton to people. Occasionally, he admits, an accident happens, meaning one of the smaller residents of the tank gets mistaken for lunch.

Other attractions include five beluga whales, including two males who arrived recently from a Mexico City amusement park and are still getting acclimated to their new home. They joined three females from the New York Aquarium. The whales like to dine on herring — about 54 pounds of it a day for the biggest of them, not chewed but swallowed whole.

The penguin enclosure includes a South African variety called a "jackass penguin" for the donkey-like braying noise they make. Their home has a feature that allows visitors to pop into the middle of the enclosure to commune with the penguins.

The new aquarium looms like a glass ark over Atlanta's Centennial Olympic Park. It is expected to be a centerpiece in a revival of the city's downtown. The city hopes the aquarium will attract as many as two million visitors in its first year.

More information about the aquarium can be found at its official Web site, the Georgia Aquarium Web site.