CHICAGO (AP) — The popular Oceanarium marine mammal exhibit at Chicago’s Shedd Aquarium will be closed for several months starting in September to allow construction crews to update and renovate existing exhibits and create new ones.

Aquarium officials said Tuesday they were reluctant to discuss the project pending a major announcement in coming days. But Shedd spokesman Roger Germann says there are some animals living in the 170,000-square-foot facility that will be moved to other institutions while the Oceanarium is undergoing renovations.

The $43 million Oceanarium, with its dolphin and whale shows, turned around the aquarium’s fortunes when it opened in 1991, making it one the city’s most-visited cultural attractions.

The aquarium regularly attracts more than 2 million people a year, up from fewer than a million visitors before the Oceanarium’s debut.

Posted 2/6/2008